The Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy on Tuesday revealed the principles of the disarmament proposal submitted to Hamas earlier this month, urging the international community to pressure the Palestinian terror group to accept the offer in order to prevent another cycle of violence in the Gaza Strip.

“It has been presented to the parties, and the engagement on it is very serious,” Board of Peace High Representative for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov said in remarks at the United Nations Security Council’s monthly session on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Two senior Arab officials familiar with the proposal submitted by Gaza ceasefire mediating countries — the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey — told The Times of Israel that they expect Hamas to respond with a counter-offer in the coming days.

While the officials offered some details on the proposal, which were published in The Times of Israel, Mladenov’s briefing to the Security Council was the first time aspects of the disarmament offer were disclosed on-the-record.

Five principles of disarmament

According to Mladenov, who briefed the council repeatedly during his previous tenures as UN envoy for Iraq and the Middle East peace process, the proposal to Hamas has five principles.

“First is reciprocity. Decommissioning proceeds in parallel with staged withdrawal (by the IDF). This is fundamental to the credibility of the entire process,” he said.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly endorsed US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war last year, he and other members of his government have expressed a desire to maintain a permanent IDF presence in at least the eastern half of the Strip still controlled by Israel.

Mladenov said that the second principle of the disarmament proposal submitted to Hamas is sequencing. Confirming The Times of Israel’s reporting, he said that “the most dangerous weapons — rockets, heavy munitions, explosive devices, assault rifles owned by arm groups [will be] addressed first [and] Tunnels must be neutralized.”

“Personal weapons are addressed later through a registration and collection process,” he said, ostensibly referring to what the Arab diplomats said would be the buy-back program in which funds and jobs are offered to those who hand over their weapons to the Palestinian police force being formed.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have already applied to serve in this........

© The Times of Israel