The United States and Israel have established a rigid two-month deadline for Hamas to fully disarm, marking a decisive escalation in the implementation of the Gaza peace plan. The ultimatum was finalized during a high-stakes summit between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, where the Israeli leader presented new, classified intelligence revealing the sheer scale of the terror group’s remaining arsenal.
According to senior officials briefed on the meeting, Netanyahu shared a joint IDF and Shin Bet assessment indicating that despite months of intense combat and airstrikes, Hamas still possesses approximately 60,000 Kalashnikov (AK-47) assault rifles within the Gaza Strip. The intelligence report suggests these weapons are cached in surviving tunnel networks and concealed within civilian infrastructure, posing a latent “insurgency threat” that makes the transition to the ceasefire’s second phase impossible under current conditions.
President Trump, who has been eager to advance his 20-point peace plan, reportedly accepted the Israeli assessment and agreed that the “Phase Two” governance transition cannot begin while such a massive stockpile of small arms remains in the hands of the group. “There has to be a disarming of Hamas,” Trump told reporters shortly after the meeting. “If they don’t disarm, as they agreed to do… then there will be hell to pay for them.”
The two-month window represents a “final opportunity” for voluntary compliance before the US supports a resumption of targeted, high-intensity operations. Sources indicate that the deadline forces Hamas to hand over the 60,000 identified rifles and other heavy weaponry to international monitors or face what Trump described as a coalition of nations willing to “wipe out” the remaining battalions. “We have 59 countries that want to go in,” Trump warned, signaling that the US is organizing a multinational pressure campaign that extends far beyond Israeli military action.
The 60,000-rifle figure has shocked Western analysts, who previously estimated Hamas’s remaining infantry capabilities to be significantly degraded. The Israeli dossier presented at Mar-a-Lago reportedly included detailed maps of suspected armories in Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis, which have been shielded by the current ceasefire terms. By declassifying this estimate to the US President, Netanyahu has effectively argued that the “day after” in Gaza cannot be secured by Palestinian technocrats if an army’s worth of assault rifles remains in circulation.
For the Biden administration’s successors, this deadline is a gamble. It aims to force Hamas’s political wing to capitulate on disarmament—a line they have previously called a “non-starter”—by leveraging the threat of total annihilation endorsed by Washington. As the clock begins ticking on this 60-day window, the region braces for either a historic surrender of arms or a violent collapse of the fragile peace that has held since October.
Footage Charlie Kirk has been shot
Charlie Kirk has been shot
