The White House launched Phase 2 of President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan last month, intending to transition the enclave toward demilitarization, technocratic governance and reconstruction. But before those plans can move forward, the administration still needs to confront a central reality on the ground: Hamas remains armed and unwilling to cooperate.

During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, the Trump administration unveiled the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a committee of technocrats intended as a post-Hamas governing authority, alongside an outline for reconstructing the enclave. 

That vision, however, was quickly challenged by Hamas’ leadership. Speaking at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha, Qatar, this past weekend, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who is under U.S. indictment on terrorism-related charges, rejected the U.N. Security Council–backed plan for Gaza — a move that could complicate disarmament and Phase 2 efforts.

Experts told Jewish Insider that the administration’s expectation that Hamas can be persuaded to voluntarily hand over its weapons is detached from the group’s incentives and its perception of the war’s outcome.

“Without first disarming Hamas, progress on every other facet of Phase 2 will be minimal at best,” said Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “The U.S. needs to adapt its strategy, which remains stuck on convincing Hamas to hand over its weapons.”

Ruhe said Hamas believes it “won the war” and therefore “can’t be incentivized to give up” power. He added that, absent voluntary disarmament, the administration may need to consider using well-vetted and tightly overseen “private military contractors” to carry out the task, a suggestion also recently put forward by former special envoy for Iran and Venezuela Elliott Abrams and JINSA’s Eric Edelman and Rena Gabber.

Other experts were similarly skeptical that Hamas would relinquish control voluntarily. Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum, warned that Hamas is not going to “want to voluntarily give up their weapons without real guarantees,” adding that the group’s incentive to comply is “not very high.”

“If you’re going to get [Hamas to comply with the plan], it’s going to have to involve some sort of guarantees for the group and guarantees for the leadership, which are going to be very difficult for the Israelis to swallow,” said Koplow. 

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Hamas is also unlikely “to surrender the actual administrative control of Gaza.” He outlined what he described as a narrow and unattractive set of options for disarmament.

“There are only two ways to fundamentally demilitarize Hamas,” Miller said. “There are only two forces capable of doing it. One would be the IDF, and you’ve seen how that has gone over the course of the last 2 ½ years. The second would be the deployment of thousands of American combat forces, which would take a while and result in a permanent occupation of Gaza by the U.S. military. Both of these strike me as not feasible from a military point of view and certainly not practical from a political point of view.”

Miller added that any disarmament process would likely need to be accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from additional areas in Gaza. The IDF currently controls more than half of the territory, demarcated by what officials refer to as a “yellow line.” 

Until Hamas is disarmed, Miller said Israel is unlikely to permit large-scale reconstruction, given concerns that materials such as cement and metal tubing could be diverted for tunnel construction and weapons production.

Koplow also noted military means as an option for disarmament, but said the Trump administration appears to be leaning toward a “DDR” process — disarmament, demobilization and reintegration — an alternative to military force in which Hamas would give up heavy weapons first, transition away from armed activity and then reintegrate former fighters into civilian life.

“The idea is that you’re not going in and destroying the group,” Koplow said. “You’re first getting rid of their weapons, you’re then trying to transform the group itself into something different and then you’re reintegrating the group’s members back into society. Historically, that’s the way that terrorist groups like this are disarmed.”

Koplow cautioned that any such effort would be slow and contentious. “Hamas is going to make it difficult,” he said, adding that demilitarization will be “a long and drawn-out and very difficult process if it has any chance of working.”

“After all these months, the ISF still lacks a clear mandate,” Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said. “If Hamas disarmed voluntarily, as Trump’s plan envisions, any number of countries would contribute troops for relatively safe peacekeeping duties like safeguarding humanitarian aid, police training and border patrol. But because Hamas won’t disarm peacefully, Arab and other Muslim countries consistently refuse to put their forces in harm’s way.”

Under Trump’s original 20-point plan, a U.S.-led International Stabilization Force (ISF) was envisioned as a “long-term internal security solution.” Last month, Trump appointed Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers as commander of the ISF, and Israeli media reported on Monday that thousands of Indonesian soldiers were expected to deploy to southern Gaza in the coming weeks as part of the first foreign contingent.

Despite those moves, experts say the ISF remains constrained. No other countries have formally joined the force, and efforts to assemble it have been complicated by reluctance among potential contributors and Israeli security concerns over which countries would be permitted to participate. Analysts also say the ISF still lacks a clearly defined mandate and could be limited to a supporting role rather than directly confronting Hamas.

“After all these months, the ISF still lacks a clear mandate,” Ruhe said. “If Hamas disarmed voluntarily, as Trump’s plan envisions, any number of countries would contribute troops for relatively safe peacekeeping duties like safeguarding humanitarian aid, police training and border patrol. But because Hamas won’t disarm peacefully, Arab and other Muslim countries consistently refuse to put their forces in harm’s way.”

Miller said the ISF would most likely deploy in areas already under Israeli control, rather than Hamas-held territory. “I see the stabilization force as exactly what its name implies,” he said. “It would be an after-the-fact deployment to monitor and stabilize. The heavy work of actually decommissioning weapons is going to take a very long time.”

Even if demilitarization were achieved, Miller said the question of whether and how Hamas members could be integrated into future governance remains unresolved. The group maintains an extensive bureaucratic apparatus in Gaza, including tens of thousands of civil servants and police officers, whose future role would need to be addressed.

“It’s probably going to involve making distinctions between Hamas fighters and Hamas bureaucrats, and making some very difficult choices about what level of reintegration, if any, you’re willing to allow for former Hamas members,” Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum, said.

“Hamas has 40,000 civil servants and 10,000 police,” Miller said. “Those people would be under the administration of whom?” 

Koplow suggested that the group be completely dismantled and barred from maintaining governing authority. 

“Hamas as a group, and certainly not as it’s currently constituted, can’t responsibly be given any role in future Gaza governance,” said Koplow. 

“It’s probably going to involve making distinctions between Hamas fighters and Hamas bureaucrats, and making some very difficult choices about what level of reintegration, if any, you’re willing to allow for former Hamas members,” Koplow added. “Then the question is, does anybody who’s ever had a Hamas affiliation have to be hunted down and eliminated over time, or is there a world in which they can, as individuals, be integrated into whatever future Gaza governance and society looks like?”

Hamas must demilitarize before Gaza can undergo redevelopment, President Donald Trump’s informal advisor Jared Kushner said on Thursday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as he presented the administration’s plan to disarm the terrorist group and rebuild Gaza.

Kushner was building off of earlier remarks by President Donald Trump at the founding ceremony for his Board of Peace. “We are committed to Gaza being fully demilitarized, properly governed and properly rebuilt. … We’re going to be very successful in Gaza; it’s going to be a great thing to watch,” Trump said at the ceremony.

Hamas, Trump said, “has to give up their weapons, and if they don’t do that, it’s gonna be the end of them.”

Kushner said that the disarmament of Hamas would be a prerequisite to the reconstruction of the enclave. “Without that we cannot rebuild,” he said. “If Hamas does not demilitarize that will be what holds back Gaza and the people of Gaza from achieving their aspirations.”

Kushner presented the administration’s “demilitarization principles” meant to be implemented in the next 100 days. These include the destruction of “heavy weapons, tunnels, military infrastructure, weapons production facilities and munitions.” 

According to the plan, Gaza will be governed by a single civilian authority, which will first be the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the committee of Palestinian technocrats announced last week, followed by the Palestinian Authority, if it undergoes reforms. Any personal weapons in Gaza must be authorized by the NCAG, which will have a monopoly on the use of force, integrating and vetting any internal security and police.

“The end state: only NCAG-sanctioned personnel may carry weapons,” the presentation states.

Reconstruction, according to the plan, will only take place in sectors that are fully disarmed, and those who agree to disarm will be given amnesty and reintegration into or safe passage out of Gaza.

The IDF will gradually withdraw from Gaza based on the successful implementation of the plan, until it fully withdraws to the IDF-controlled security perimeter separating Gaza from Israeli civilians.

The other Board of Peace priorities in Gaza over the next 100 days will be delivering humanitarian aid and rehabilitating essential infrastructure, including water, electricity, sewage, hospitals and bakeries, as well as clearing rubble and building improved temporary housing.

Kushner presented the Trump administration’s vision for a redeveloped Gaza with a map that included a port and a tourism zone along the Mediterranean coast, as well as large residential areas and industrial complexes, while retaining the security perimeter. 

Trump spoke in his concluding remarks about the potential of seaside property in Gaza: “This is a great location. See, I’m a real estate person at heart … I said ‘look at this location on the sea, look at this piece of property what it can be … People that are living so poorly can be living so well.’”

The plan includes the construction of a “New Rafah” in the next two to three years, including over 100,000 housing units, and subsequently, a “New Gaza.” Kushner envisioned 100% employment, with 500,000 jobs created and a $10 billion GDP by 2035.

In addition, Kushner projected over $25 billion in investments into the enclave, and said that donor countries will be announced at a separate ceremony in Washington in the coming weeks.

“We’re studying the best practices in the world,” Kushner said. “We want to encourage all the countries to be able to follow these best practices. … If we find what’s working in other countries, we should be copying them.”

Kushner encouraged all countries to put aside their differences to help the plan succeed.

“This deal only happened because … we all worked together to make this happen,” he said. “I see people criticizing Israel, or Israel criticizing Turkey and Qatar. Just calm down and work together for 30 days. … The goal here is peace between Israel and the Palestinian people. Everyone wants to live peacefully, everyone wants to live with dignity. … Let’s focus on the positive story, let’s calm down, turn a new chapter. If we believe peace can be possible, then peace is possible.”

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir voiced objections to Qatar and Turkey’s continued involvement on the Gaza Executive Board overseeing the NCAG.

“Turkey and Qatar remain pro-Hamas states that bolstered the Nazi terrorist organization leading up to October 7 and supported it throughout the war; this will not change in 30 days. Hamas must be utterly destroyed — countries that support it will not do so,” he said in a statement following Kushner’s remarks.

Ali Sha’ath, the head of the NCAG, said in a video address shown at the Davos ceremony that the Rafah border crossing would be opened next week. The Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, also said in a post on X that “an agreement has been reached regarding the preparation for re-opening of the Rafah crossing. Concurrently, we are working with Israel and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza to expedite the search for the remaining Israeli hostage.” 

An Israeli official told Jewish Insider that the matter of the Rafah crossing would be discussed at an Israeli Security Cabinet meeting in the coming days, along with the return of the remains of Ran Gvili, the final Israeli hostage in Gaza.

Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, a member of the opposition, posted on X that “the Rafah crossing is opening, the government of terrorists in suits” — referring to the NCAG — “is already acting in Gaza, and Israel is acting surprised. There are no surprises here, the Oct. 7 government continues to surrender to the Palestinians.”

ASPEN, Colo. — Former Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo argued at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday that post-war reconstruction of Gaza will require new tools, methods and partners.

Adeyemo, who served in the Biden administration, said that a lasting solution will require a political settlement that provides the Palestinians with “some type of self-determination” and ensures Israeli security, but that some level of reconstruction and stability will need to precede both of those things. He said one estimate placed the cost of a reconstruction effort at $50 billion.

“We’re going to need to think about this differently with new tools, in new ways, because the thing that you want to do, not just in Gaza, but as we think about reconstruction differently, is we want it to be reconstruction that’s creating economic opportunity in the places that we are reconstructing,” Adeyemo said.

He said that will require a coalition, including new countries as well as private sector partners, because some of the actors involved in previous reconstruction efforts in Gaza have less of an appetite to spend money on the effort than they have in the past. International donors, led by Qatar, pledged upwards of $5 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza following the 2014 war with Israel.

Adeyemo added that it’s crucial that the reconstruction leads to a stable economy in which civilians aren’t reliant on extremist groups. He offered as an example that in prewar Gaza, obtaining fuel for an air conditioning unit required a relationship with Hamas and paying taxes to the terror group.

“Fundamentally, that was because of underinvestment in infrastructure,” Adeyemo said. “So as we think about infrastructure, I think the thing that you will want to think about in postconflict areas, Gaza or others, is, how do you do it in a way that not only restores basic infrastructure and basic equipment, but actually thinks about long term economic development in these areas?”