Senior political sources in Jerusalem say Washington faces a strategic embarrassment as it prepares to implement the second phase of Trump’s Gaza peace plan.
They believe the US is coming to realize there is currently no Arab or international actor able to disarm Hamas without becoming directly engaged in fighting it.
Despite intensive US-led diplomacy, no formula has been found to resolve the fate of the dozens of Hamas fighters trapped in a tunnel in southern Gaza — an area currently under Israeli control. Officials say that, although this issue is not formally listed as part of phase two, both sides regard it as a precondition for progress. Advancing also depends on returning all remains held by Hamas.
A central unresolved question remains: who will actually dismantle Hamas’s military wing, collect its weapons and destroy the extensive tunnel network in the Strip?