Donald Trump announced that his Board of Peace reached an agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas, a key term for Israeli troops withdrawing from Gaza. The board was set up to implement the Gaza ceasefire first agreed last October, and disarmament had been the main sticking point.

According to Julian Borgia, the agreement appears to set a phased withdrawal in step with disarmament. No one is expected to do everything on their side before the other does, and there will be no disarmament before or without a corresponding withdrawal. Hamas says weapons go to a Board of Peace body.

That is really unclear. There is a two-week period to set up a verification commission. Then the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza must enter, but it needs a police force that has not been properly trained, backed by an international stabilisation force that has not begun arriving.

Israeli officials quoted anonymously have dismissed it as a Hamas play for time. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir says Hamas should be destroyed and emigration from Gaza encouraged. The coalition's far right never accepted the ceasefire, leaving Netanyahu in a bind between Trump's request and his coalition.

Borgia says the elections loom large in Netanyahu's calculations, since any apparent weakness towards Hamas would cost him votes in his core support. Until now his tactic has been to agree on paper and then drag his heels, limiting aid into Gaza and pushing front lines forward.

Khalil al-Hayah, based in Doha, formerly associated with Hamas's more hardline Gaza wing and closely associated with Yahya Sinwa, who launched the war. He emerged from drawn-out internal elections, during which some organisers were bombed, and is under heavy pressure from Qatar and Turkey to reach an agreement.

The host cites more than half of the strip, 53%. Borgia says that since the October ceasefire Israel has pushed its lines into Hamas-controlled territory and is now thought to control more than 60%, plus a buffer zone where international organisations must coordinate with it and Palestinians face danger.

More humanitarian aid enters than during the war, but nothing that would help Gaza rebuild, such as heavy equipment or even water pipes, which Israel sees as potential dual use. Borgia says conditions for the 2.1 million Palestinians in a shrinking area remain horrendous, with no sign of change.