The fragile ceasefire that has been in place for nine months is now most critical in its history. President Donald Trump late Thursday penned an "historic agreement" to be reached for the "full disarmament" of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza, as he called it, as the "second phase" of the truce he brokered last October. Soon, the jubilation was replaced by the usual scenario of this war: claim, counterclaim, and then grudging acceptance, which means the real guns stayed where they were.

The US-chaired Board of Peace, established to oversee the postwar transition in Gaza, has been working out a fifteen-point document for weeks and is constructing a new timetable for negotiations between Hamas and Israeli authorities, officials informed of the talks said.The US-chaired Board of Peace that was set up to oversee the postwar transition in Gaza has been working out a new fifteen-point document in recent weeks and is developing a new timetable for talks between Hamas and Israeli authorities, officials informed of the process said. The plan involves handing over Hamas' arms to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza over eight months, which is to be composed of Palestinian technocrats to take over running the strip after Hamas. An international stabilisation force and a vetted Palestinian police force, of which the first batch of about five thousand cadets has reportedly passed vetting, will be deployed to oversee the handover, although there is no definite deployment date for either of these.

There are more to the mechanics than rifles and rocket launchers. The plan's key formula called by one diplomatic source ‘one authority, one law, one weapon' would call for the dismantling of all types of armaments, heavy and light, and tunnels and storage depots and any remaining production facilities in a ‘verified, reciprocal sequence', not a leap of faith,' officials said. But other militias known to be armed by Israel within Gaza would also need to be demobilized. A buyback scheme will allow the ordinary Palestinians to surrender personal weapons for cash, while the members of Hamas group who do so will be given amnesty rather than prosecution. The Israeli forces in Gaza, which last year limited their operations to the so-called "Yellow Line," the dividing line between the north and south of the area, are to be withdrawn from the area though not yet visible as a part of compliance along with a pilot housing project, which is being floated in the Rafah area.

That's where the deal starts to go sour. The fifteen-point framework "does not address adequately" the central demand of Jerusalem, which is for full demilitarization, as a precondition, not a parallel step, of any troop movement, said an Israeli official to reporters this week. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has already raised objections directly to Blair, and the official repeated definitively that there would be no Israeli withdrawal from the Yellow Line until Hamas is disarmed and the strip is “fully demilitarized” in Jerusalem's words. With Israel heading to the polls this October, few in the region are hoping that Netanyahu's coalition would agree to any plan that includes a withdrawal of troops before elections are held, and mediators have reportedly told Hamas that as well.

Hamas' own statement, relayed to Reuters Friday, further exacerbates the stand-off. The group threatens to take any step towards disarmament only if Israel unconditionally accepts and confirms the same 15-point text, and its withdrawal from Gaza will start with the withdrawal, not the end. Both sides are asking the other to make the first move a classic scenario that was what was holding up the second phase of the ceasefire for much of the last year.

Beneath the diplomatic rhetoric lies an economic reckoning not many in Washington are anxious to brag about. According to the latest joint assessment (U.N., E.U. and World Bank) the reconstruction costs for Gaza for the next decade are $71.4 billion, which include losses of physical infrastructure of about $35 billion and economic and social losses exceeding $22 billion, with billions of dollars required just to restart basic services. It is almost seven times the cost of rebuilding as a result of the 2008-09, 2014 and 2021 wars, and comes at a time when Gulf donors are questioning sequencing, (Why were investments made in a territory whose leadership, security guarantees and legal system are yet to be finalised after the previous wars…?). The three mediators who are pushing the hardest for Hamas to agree to the current terms Qatar, Egypt and Turkey are facing pressure from Washington to sign the agreement before any reconstruction conference can credibly be held.

In addition, there is one less talked-about channel that seems to have taken this round of discussions out of the official sphere. In an interview this week with a Jordanian news outlet, a high-ranking official in the dissident faction of Fatah’ headed by the exiled former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan confirmed that he has been in direct talks with Jared Kushner and Board of Peace Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov since the early stages of the American initiative. Dahlan, a resident of Abu Dhabi and advisor to the UAE's president, has also met this year with Shin Bet chief, according to a source, reflecting how much of the real negotiating weight is being carried outside of formal negotiations.

What comes out of that isn't a step forward, but a fine-tuned armistice between two sides that both feel like they have done the right thing with flexibility without relinquishing the object which is truly theirs. It may be a signed document or just another item on the list of near misses depends on what unfolds in October in Jerusalem, much less on the fifteen points on paper.