Trump says US has ‘understanding’ with Israel on Hamas disarmament deal

Published 31 July 2026 · world

Israel has not yet agreed to plan for Hamas to surrender weapons in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. United States President Donald Trump

Israel has not yet agreed to plan for Hamas to surrender weapons in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. United States President Donald Trump has claimed that Israel is “very happy” about the newly announced deal with the Palestinian group Hamas, even though the country has yet to agree to its terms. Friday’s statement came as Trump led a cabinet meeting at Maryland’s Camp David, a presidential retreat. The US president explained that the deal may go through “ups and down” as the situation remains “complex”, but he presented a rosy picture overall. “We do have an understanding with Israel. Israel’s very happy about it. Israel helped us with it,” Trump said of the agreement. Hours earlier, Hamas had confirmed it agreed to the first step in a deal to bring Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza to a complete end. Israel, however, has remained largely silent on the arrangement, which would include Hamas surrendering its weapons to a Palestinian committee in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. At least one Israeli official, far-right Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has called the plan “unacceptable to Israel”. He called its provisions “tantamount to agreeing to Hamas organising for the next massacre”.

In an interview with CNN, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, nevertheless maintained that Trump would “absolutely not” be disappointed with Israel’s eventual response. Still, he, too, questioned details of the agreement, saying Israel would only support a deal that assured that “Hamas will not have the capability to even touch this weapon again.” Trump, meanwhile, painted a far more positive picture of Israeli sentiment as he spoke to reporters. “It’s a great breakthrough. Nobody’s ever thought that would be possible to disarm Hamas,” he said. Fragile agreement The preliminary agreement, announced following a meeting of mediators from Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and the US, could indeed represent a major turn in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, during which at least 73,341 Palestinians have been killed in the enclave. Both sides signed a ceasefire agreement as part of a 20-point US-backed plan in October of last year. The future of its full implementation has been unclear amid near-daily Israeli violations. At least 1,214 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began. A so-called International Board of Peace has been launched to oversee the deal, with Trump as its chair, and a political organisation called the Committee for the Administration of Gaza has been appointed to eventually oversee daily administrative operations in the besieged enclave.