Middle East crisis live: Hamas will hand over weapons to new Gaza administration, says official, but deal depends on Israeli withdrawal

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Hamas official says group will hand over weapons to new Gaza administration - Reuters

In further comments to Reuters, Ghazi Hamad said Hamas will hand over its weapons to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a new body established by the Board of Peace to oversee day-to-day affairs in the Palestinian territory.

He said disarmament will be contingent on the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and that the NCAG and international force must enter Gaza and dismantle Israeli-backed militias.

The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the interim body to which Hamas has offered to hand governing authority to, said it is ready to “assume its responsibilities” in the Palestinian territory.

Its statement followed Donald Trump’s announcement last night that Hamas has agreed to disarm as part of the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreed in October.

The NCAG, established in January by Trump’s Board of Peace and based in Cairo, Egypt, has been unable to enter Gaza largely due to Israeli objections. The group is made up of 15 Palestinian technocrats and is led by Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority.

In a statement on X, the NCAG said:

\n The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) welcomes the progress announced yesterday regarding the roadmap, and the opening of a path toward beginning its implementation.\n This development represents an important milestone for our people in the Gaza Strip. After years of conflict, destruction, and uncertainty, the priority today is to translate this progress into practical steps that have a tangible impact on citizens’ daily lives.\n The NCAG affirms its full readiness to assume its responsibilities. Over the past months, it has completed extensive institutional and operational preparations to take over the administration of the Strip, restore essential public services, strengthen the rule of law, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, and lead recovery and reconstruction efforts.\n

Several Palestinians ⁠have been ⁠wounded in ​an Israeli ⁠airstrike in ⁠Gaza this morning, just ​hours ‌after ‌US president Donald Trump announced a deal ‌on Hamas ​disarmament, Reuters reported, citing local health officials.

We will bring you more as we get it.

A man suspected of spying on a UK military base for Iran has been arrested in Cyprus, the Metropolitan police said.

Rashad Sultanov, 44, a dual British-Azerbaijani national from Islington in north London, was arrested on 17 July by Cypriot authorities ⁠and is being held in custody as extradition proceedings progress, the Met said.

He is alleged to have conducted “hostile surveillance” of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and shared information with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In further comments to Reuters, Ghazi Hamad said Hamas will hand over its weapons to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a new body established by the Board of Peace to oversee day-to-day affairs in the Palestinian territory.

He said disarmament will be contingent on the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and that the NCAG and international force must enter Gaza and dismantle Israeli-backed militias.

Israel must approve the ⁠phased disarmament ⁠agreement announced ​by US president Donald Trump ⁠before ​Hamas ‌will ‌implement it, Ghazi ‌Hamad, a Hamas official involved in the negotiations, ‌told Reuters.

Once both sides ​approve the agreement text, Israel ⁠must begin implementing the ​agreement’s ​first phase, ​Hamad ​said.

Trump’s Board of Peace, an organisation established to oversee the Gaza ceasefire, said Hamas agreed to a “detailed road map” for disarmament and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory, but a lot of the details remain unclear.

We are getting some of the first international reactions of the supposed Gaza deal announced by Donald Trump.

In the UK, Louise Haigh, who runs the new office of the prime minister, said any progress in peace negotiations is “extremely welcome” while the government awaits Israel’s response.

“It’s extremely welcome news if there has been any progress in the peace negotiations and any step forward to disarming Hamas,” she told BBC Breakfast.

“Obviously, we will need to await the Israeli government’s response and its commitment to the ceasefire and a way forward and a withdrawal from Gaza, and to cease its activities of settler violence and taking action against such settler violence in the West Bank.

“But if progress has been made, then it’s extremely welcome news, because the suffering in Gaza and the wider region has been too extreme for far too long, and the human cost of the war has been absolutely obscene and intolerable.”

She added: “We’re awaiting the response from the Israeli government, so we’ll set out the details in due course of our wider government response.”

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, local media reported “massive explosions” overnight in the southern parts of the country, where Israeli forces say they have blasted an underground tunnel network belonging to Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported explosions in Yahmar al-Shaqif, Arnoun and Kfar Tebnit, all areas close to the Beaufort Ridge that is occupied by the Israeli military.

The explosions began at about midnight and “reverberated with tremendous and unprecedented force throughout the entire south”, NNA reported.

A correspondent for the news agency said the blasts near Beaufort Castle, the 900-year-old castle and strategic ridge captured by Israeli troops in May, had “caused the windows of a number of houses in the town of al-Qlailah to shatter, due to the force of the blasts and the tremors felt by residents across the region”.

The report added: “The explosions caused damage to some homes, while residents reported that the sound of the blasts was intense, accompanied by a powerful shock wave that shook the town, as well as the smell of gunpowder in the air.”

In a post on X, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) said it “destroyed several key features in the underground tunnel network” in the Beaufort Ridge area. It claimed that the tunnel network, located about 6km (just under 4 miles) from the Israeli town of Metula across the border, was built over 20 years and consisted of several levels, serving as a “central terror headquarters for [Hezbollah’s] “Badir” unit in southern Lebanon, which was funded and planned by the Iranian terror regime”.

“The existence of the infrastructure posed a threat to the residents of the north [of Israel] and to our forces,” the IDF said.

“Over the past weeks, IDF forces have completed their hold on the Beaufort Ridge area, while controlling and clearing the underground infrastructures and preparing them for destruction.”

Donald Trump claims a deal has been reached for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza, but many hurdles and conditions remained in the Palestinian territory.

“The agreement will be carried out in carefully structured phases,” the US president said on social media. “As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors.”

Senior Hamas officials have reportedly agreed to the plan, but the question of whether the group disarms before or after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza has already emerged as a point of contention. “We will not take any action regarding disarmament prior to Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip,” Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas negotiating team, told ​Al Jazeera.

Earlier an Israeli official told the Reuters news agency that the proposed terms were not satisfactory.

“Israel demands the complete disarmament of Hamas, including ​the removal of weapons from Gaza and the complete demilitarisation of the Strip as a precondition for ‌any process,” the official said, adding that the plan under discussion did not “provide a satisfactory response to these demands and Israel conveyed its objections”.

You can read more about that news here.

The announcement comes nine months after a US-brokered ceasefire was signed. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas had largely deadlocked over the implementation of its second phase, including the disarmament of Hamas and the reconstruction of Gaza.

In the US-Israeli war on Iran, which is showing signs of escalating across the region, Iran’s army on Friday launched drone strikes at US military facilities at the Ahmad Al Jaber airbase in Kuwait. The strikes were in response to recent US attacks on Iran including a strike on a home in Qeshm, Iran’s state media reported.

And Saudi Arabia is preparing for a major military offensive against the Houthis by sea and possibly by land in central Yemen, Yemeni sources believe, in a move to break the chokehold on its oil exports through the southern Red Sea.

In other developments:

• \n Twenty-five commodities vessels passed through the ⁠Bab el-Mandeb strait on Thursday, while traffic through the strait ⁠of Hormuz ⁠remained ​low with only two tankers transiting, according to Kpler shipping ⁠data.
• \n Analysts are expecting major oil companies to report large profits while fighting between Iran and the US impeded petroleum shipments. Six of Europe’s largest oil companies have posted first-quarter profits of $22bn altogether, a total 43% higher than the same time last year, according to Global Witness.
• \n Saudi Arabia on Thursday said it had set up a maritime defence alliance of 14 regional countries to secure navigation around the Bab al-Mandab strait.
• \n An Iranian strike hit a Chinese firm’s building in Kuwait on Thursday, severely damaging the structure and killing a worker, Kuwait’s military said, hours after Jordan’s air defences shot down five missiles launched from Iran.
• \n Egypt’s government said on Thursday authorities were analysing drone fragments from an unprecedented strike on one of its ports, after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned of regional escalation. His government had earlier confirmed that a fire on two gas vessels in the Damietta port – one of which was US-owned – was a result of a drone strike, the first to target the country since the outbreak of the Middle East war.

Key events

• 8m agoUS-backed administration says its ready to govern Gaza
• 33m agoPalestinians injured in Israeli airstrike on Gaza hours after Hamas disarmament deal announced - Reuters
• 1h agoMan arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of spying on UK military base for Iran
• 1h agoHamas official says group will hand over weapons to new Gaza administration - Reuters
• 2h agoIsrael must approve agreement before it is implemented, says Hamas official
• 2h agoHamas disarmament news 'extremely welcome,' says Louise Haigh
• 3h ago'Massive' blasts reported in southern Lebanon as IDF bombs 'Hezbollah tunnels' near Beaufort Castle
• 4h agoOpening summary: Trump claims Gaza deal reached – but hurdles remain

US-backed administration says its ready to govern Gaza

The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the interim body to which Hamas has offered to hand governing authority to, said it is ready to “assume its responsibilities” in the Palestinian territory.

Its statement followed Donald Trump’s announcement last night that Hamas has agreed to disarm as part of the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreed in October.

Palestinians walk by the rubble of buildings that were destroyed during the Israel-Hamas war, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

The NCAG, established in January by Trump’s Board of Peace and based in Cairo, Egypt, has been unable to enter Gaza largely due to Israeli objections. The group is made up of 15 Palestinian technocrats and is led by Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority.

In a statement on X, the NCAG said:

double quotation markThe National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) welcomes the progress announced yesterday regarding the roadmap, and the opening of a path toward beginning its implementation. This development represents an important milestone for our people in the Gaza Strip. After years of conflict, destruction, and uncertainty, the priority today is to translate this progress into practical steps that have a tangible impact on citizens’ daily lives. The NCAG affirms its full readiness to assume its responsibilities. Over the past months, it has completed extensive institutional and operational preparations to take over the administration of the Strip, restore essential public services, strengthen the rule of law, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, and lead recovery and reconstruction efforts.

Palestinians injured in Israeli airstrike on Gaza hours after Hamas disarmament deal announced - Reuters

Several Palestinians ⁠have been ⁠wounded in ​an Israeli ⁠airstrike in ⁠Gaza this morning, just ​hours ‌after ‌US president Donald Trump announced a deal ‌on Hamas ​disarmament, Reuters reported, citing local health officials.

We will bring you more as we get it.

Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmoud has reported the mood in Gaza this morning following news of Hamas’s potential disarmament.

Palestinians have heard repeated statements about their fate in the three years since the current war began between Israel and Hamas, so last night’s announcement by Donald Trump wasn’t met with any particular joy or celebration. “There is scepticism and cautiousness among Palestinians,” Mahoud writes from Gaza City in the north of the Strip.

Children play as displaced Palestinians shelter at a camp in Gaza City. Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters

In case you need a refresher on Donald Trump’s Board of Peace – what it is and who is in it – here is an explainer from my colleague Maya Young from a couple of months ago:

Man arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of spying on UK military base for Iran

A man suspected of spying on a UK military base for Iran has been arrested in Cyprus, the Metropolitan police said.

Rashad Sultanov, 44, a dual British-Azerbaijani national from Islington in north London, was arrested on 17 July by Cypriot authorities ⁠and is being held in custody as extradition proceedings progress, the Met said.

He is alleged to have conducted “hostile surveillance” of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and shared information with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Hamas official says group will hand over weapons to new Gaza administration - Reuters

In further comments to Reuters, Ghazi Hamad said Hamas will hand over its weapons to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a new body established by the Board of Peace to oversee day-to-day affairs in the Palestinian territory.

He said disarmament will be contingent on the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and that the NCAG and international force must enter Gaza and dismantle Israeli-backed militias.

Israel must approve agreement before it is implemented, says Hamas official

Israel must approve the ⁠phased disarmament ⁠agreement announced ​by US president Donald Trump ⁠before ​Hamas ‌will ‌implement it, Ghazi ‌Hamad, a Hamas official involved in the negotiations, ‌told Reuters.

Once both sides ​approve the agreement text, Israel ⁠must begin implementing the ​agreement’s ​first phase, ​Hamad ​said.

Trump’s Board of Peace, an organisation established to oversee the Gaza ceasefire, said Hamas agreed to a “detailed road map” for disarmament and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory, but a lot of the details remain unclear.

Reuters has issued some news alerts after speaking to a Hamas official about the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire, including disarmament.

The news agency reported the official saying Israel must withdraw its forces from Gaza, and that if it does not approve the accord then Hamas will not implement it. Israel has yet to publicly say anything about the deal.

We will bring you more as we get it.

Hamas disarmament news 'extremely welcome,' says Louise Haigh

We are getting some of the first international reactions of the supposed Gaza deal announced by Donald Trump.

In the UK, Louise Haigh, who runs the new office of the prime minister, said any progress in peace negotiations is “extremely welcome” while the government awaits Israel’s response.

“It’s extremely welcome news if there has been any progress in the peace negotiations and any step forward to disarming Hamas,” she told BBC Breakfast.

Louise Haigh arriving at 10 Downing Street on 20 July 2026. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

“Obviously, we will need to await the Israeli government’s response and its commitment to the ceasefire and a way forward and a withdrawal from Gaza, and to cease its activities of settler violence and taking action against such settler violence in the West Bank.

“But if progress has been made, then it’s extremely welcome news, because the suffering in Gaza and the wider region has been too extreme for far too long, and the human cost of the war has been absolutely obscene and intolerable.”

She added: “We’re awaiting the response from the Israeli government, so we’ll set out the details in due course of our wider government response.”

'Massive' blasts reported in southern Lebanon as IDF bombs 'Hezbollah tunnels' near Beaufort Castle

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, local media reported “massive explosions” overnight in the southern parts of the country, where Israeli forces say they have blasted an underground tunnel network belonging to Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported explosions in Yahmar al-Shaqif, Arnoun and Kfar Tebnit, all areas close to the Beaufort Ridge that is occupied by the Israeli military.

The explosions began at about midnight and “reverberated with tremendous and unprecedented force throughout the entire south”, NNA reported.

A correspondent for the news agency said the blasts near Beaufort Castle, the 900-year-old castle and strategic ridge captured by Israeli troops in May, had “caused the windows of a number of houses in the town of al-Qlailah to shatter, due to the force of the blasts and the tremors felt by residents across the region”.

An Israeli flag on Beaufort Castle, as seen from Marjayoun, southern Lebanon. Photograph: Reuters

The report added: “The explosions caused damage to some homes, while residents reported that the sound of the blasts was intense, accompanied by a powerful shock wave that shook the town, as well as the smell of gunpowder in the air.”

In a post on X, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) said it “destroyed several key features in the underground tunnel network” in the Beaufort Ridge area. It claimed that the tunnel network, located about 6km (just under 4 miles) from the Israeli town of Metula across the border, was built over 20 years and consisted of several levels, serving as a “central terror headquarters for [Hezbollah’s] “Badir” unit in southern Lebanon, which was funded and planned by the Iranian terror regime”.

“The existence of the infrastructure posed a threat to the residents of the north [of Israel] and to our forces,” the IDF said.

“Over the past weeks, IDF forces have completed their hold on the Beaufort Ridge area, while controlling and clearing the underground infrastructures and preparing them for destruction.”

More now on Iran’s military saying it launched drone strikes targeting US military facilities in Kuwait on Friday, as fighting between Washington and Tehran resumed after a nearly week-long lull.

The army said it targeted “fighter aircraft shelters, satellite communications systems and equipment storage facilities at Ahmad al-Jaber air base in Kuwait”.

There was no immediate comment from the US military’s Central Command.

The Iranian army said in a statement the strikes came in response to US military’s recent aggression and “brutal attack” on a residential home on Qeshm Island, Agence France-Presse reports.

Local media reported on Thursday that three members of a family were killed in US strikes on the island in the strait of Hormuz.

The US military earlier said it had carried out a “heavy wave of strikes” against Iran.

Qeshm Island is a storage site for Iranian attack craft, drones, sea mines and other materials used to disrupt shipping through the Hormuz strait and has come under frequent American attack.

Opening summary: Trump claims Gaza deal reached – but hurdles remain

Donald Trump claims a deal has been reached for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza, but many hurdles and conditions remained in the Palestinian territory.

“The agreement will be carried out in carefully structured phases,” the US president said on social media. “As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors.”

Senior Hamas officials have reportedly agreed to the plan, but the question of whether the group disarms before or after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza has already emerged as a point of contention. “We will not take any action regarding disarmament prior to Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip,” Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas negotiating team, told ​Al Jazeera.

Earlier an Israeli official told the Reuters news agency that the proposed terms were not satisfactory.

“Israel demands the complete disarmament of Hamas, including ​the removal of weapons from Gaza and the complete demilitarisation of the Strip as a precondition for ‌any process,” the official said, adding that the plan under discussion did not “provide a satisfactory response to these demands and Israel conveyed its objections”.

You can read more about that news here.

The announcement comes nine months after a US-brokered ceasefire was signed. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas had largely deadlocked over the implementation of its second phase, including the disarmament of Hamas and the reconstruction of Gaza.

In the US-Israeli war on Iran, which is showing signs of escalating across the region, Iran’s army on Friday launched drone strikes at US military facilities at the Ahmad Al Jaber airbase in Kuwait. The strikes were in response to recent US attacks on Iran including a strike on a home in Qeshm, Iran’s state media reported.

And Saudi Arabia is preparing for a major military offensive against the Houthis by sea and possibly by land in central Yemen, Yemeni sources believe, in a move to break the chokehold on its oil exports through the southern Red Sea.

Members of the Saudi special forces before a military parade in Mecca in a file shot. Photograph: Amr Nabil/AP

In other developments:

• Twenty-five commodities vessels passed through the ⁠Bab el-Mandeb strait on Thursday, while traffic through the strait ⁠of Hormuz ⁠remained ​low with only two tankers transiting, according to Kpler shipping ⁠data.
• Analysts are expecting major oil companies to report large profits while fighting between Iran and the US impeded petroleum shipments. Six of Europe’s largest oil companies have posted first-quarter profits of $22bn altogether, a total 43% higher than the same time last year, according to Global Witness.
• Saudi Arabia on Thursday said it had set up a maritime defence alliance of 14 regional countries to secure navigation around the Bab al-Mandab strait.
• An Iranian strike hit a Chinese firm’s building in Kuwait on Thursday, severely damaging the structure and killing a worker, Kuwait’s military said, hours after Jordan’s air defences shot down five missiles launched from Iran.
• Egypt’s government said on Thursday authorities were analysing drone fragments from an unprecedented strike on one of its ports, after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned of regional escalation. His government had earlier confirmed that a fire on two gas vessels in the Damietta port – one of which was US-owned – was a result of a drone strike, the first to target the country since the outbreak of the Middle East war.