US Press
New York Times reports the Gaza deal dropped its explicit weapons ban
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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Clauses that would have barred Hamas explicitly from holding weapons were taken out of the Gaza agreement during months of negotiation, three sources briefed on the talks told the New York Times.
What survived is narrower. The final text obliges the movement to take its heavy weapons out of service and store them, under Palestinian technocrats with American support. No timetable was set for that handover, and none for the Israeli withdrawal it is supposed to trigger.
The report also says Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the strikes in Gaza halted last week, after meeting senior Board of Peace officials — days before he announced in public that Israel does not accept the fifteen-point document and will not withdraw until Hamas disarms.
The Israeli daily Haaretz carried the account in Hebrew on Monday, and led its politics file with it.
Read against the prime minister's public position, the two facts describe one situation: the plan he rejects is the plan whose central obligation was already softened, and the war he says continues has been quiet since the meeting.
For Gaza the practical question is the one the reporting leaves open. Storage is not surrender, and a withdrawal with no date attached is a withdrawal that any party can defer while the population lives in the interval.
The Board of Peace has told Israeli reporters this week that it looks at actions rather than declarations. On the ground the action is a pause with no schedule behind it.
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