Hamas Says Israel Must End Aggression As Trump’s Peace Board Plans Gaza’s Future.

Gaza, Palestine; February 2026: Hamas said any discussions on Gaza must begin with a total halt to Israeli “aggression” as Donald Trump‘s “Board of Peace” maps out the territory’s future, with Israel insisting on the militants’ disarmament before reconstruction starts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said on Thursday, that there would be no reconstruction of war-shattered Gaza before the disarmament of Hamas, as the “Board of Peace” convened for its inaugural meeting in Washington.

Around two dozen world leaders – members of the Peace Board alongside senior officials met for the first meeting after the United States, Qatar and Egypt negotiated a ceasefire in October to halt two years of war in the Gaza Strip. “We agreed with our ally the US there will be no reconstruction of Gaza before the demilitarisation of Gaza”, Netanyahu had said during a televised speech at a military ceremony last Thursday i.e., 19th February 2026.

One of the most sensitive issues before the peace board is the future of the Islamist movement Hamas, which fought the war with Israel and still exerts influence in the territory. Disarmament of the group is a central Israeli demand and a key point in negotiations over the ceasefire’s next stage. Israel has suggested sweeping restrictions including seizing small personal rifles from Hamas.

But the board meeting held on Thursday have surprisingly offered no timeline for Hamas to lay down its weapons or for Israel’s army to withdraw from the shattered enclave. “Any political process or any arrangement under discussion concerning the Gaza Strip and the future of our Palestinian people must start with the total halt of aggression”, Hamas have said in a statement on Thursday.

The Palestinian group also said arrangements for Gaza’s future must start with the “lifting of the blockade, and the guarantee of our people’s legitimate national rights, first and foremost their right to freedom and self-determination”. During the Board of Peace meeting, it was announced that a handful of countries, Albania, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Morocco, would commit troops to a nascent International Stabilization Force (ISF) for Gaza.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told media outlets that the Palestinian Islamist movement was open to international forces in the territory, but with caveats. The Palestinian Islamist movement would not surrender its weapons nor accept foreign intervention in Gaza, pushing back against US and Israeli demands. “We want peacekeeping forces that monitor the ceasefire, ensure its implementation, and act as a buffer between the occupation army and our people in the Gaza Strip, without interfering in Gaza’s internal affairs”, Qassem further stated.

The ISF aims to have 20,000 soldiers, as well as a new police force. Muslim-majority Indonesia has said it is ready to send up to 8,000 troops.

“Criminalising the resistance, its weapons, and those who carried it out is something we should not accept”, Khaled Meshal said at a conference in Doha. “As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation, something nations take pride in”, said Meshal, who previously headed the group.

Israeli officials say that Hamas still has around 20,000 fighters and about 60,000 Kalashnikovs in Gaza.

A Palestinian technocratic committee has been set up to take over the day-to-day governance in the battered Gaza Strip, but it remains unclear whether, or how, it will address the issue of demilitarisation.

Earlier, on 15th February 2026, US President Donald Trump urged Hamas to move forward with disarmament under his plan for post-war Gaza, and said members of his so-called “Board of Peace” had pledged $5 billion to the Palestinian territory’s reconstruction.

“Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarisation”, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform, ahead of a February 19th meeting of the board in the US Capital city of Washington.

Palestinians who spoke to the media reporters in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis swayed between hope and suspicion about the Washington meeting. “Trump is merely a military force, who is imposing his views on the world, and this security council, which he boasts about, is another gateway to the occupation of Palestine, another face of the Zionist occupation”, said Farid Abu Odeh, referring to the board.

Another Palestinian, Mohammed al-Saqqa, said he was praying Trump’s board would lead to “security and peace, and to something better than what we have gone through”.

But many experts and some US allies have indicated scepticism at the board due to concerns it may sideline the United Nations.

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that he found what was emerging from the board “seriously disturbing”. Lovatt said many of its ideas for Gaza’s reconstruction originated from Israeli-friendly partners, while Palestinian voices were excluded. He said signs pointed to “a colonial project in terms of trying to impose a foreign economic project on a territory”.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the European Commission should not have sent a representative to the meeting as it did not have a mandate to represent member states. Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said the lack of Palestinian input and the grand reconstruction plans contingent on Hamas’s disarmament made it “hard to take the Board of Peace seriously”.

Team Maverick.