Iran Reaffirms Hamas Support as Trump Demands Group Disarm

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian phoned Hamas’ newly elected leader to offer congratulations and reaffirm Tehran’s support for the group, Hamas said Monday, even as President Donald Trump pushes a high-stakes Gaza agreement designed to disarm the terrorist organization and remove it from power.

According to an Arabic-language statement from Hamas reviewed by News Outlet, Pezeshkian congratulated Khalil al-Hayya on being chosen to lead the group’s political bureau and said Iran would continue backing the Palestinian cause.

“We are with you, and we support you in every action you take, despite the attacks we are facing,” Pezeshkian said, according to Hamas’ account of the call.

News Outlet has requested confirmation from Iran’s mission to the United Nations that the call occurred, along with any official account of the conversation.

The reported call underscores a major tension at the heart of Trump’s Gaza plan. While the White House is framing the proposal as a historic path to end Hamas’ rule and secure its weapons, Iran — long one of the group’s most important military and financial backers — appears to be publicly reinforcing its commitment to Hamas and its new leadership. That support is likely to intensify questions over whether Hamas would truly give up the arsenal that underpins its authority, and whether Trump’s proposed Board of Peace could enforce disarmament while the group retains political backing from one of Washington’s chief regional rivals.

Trump recently hailed the proposal as a “HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups,” describing it as a breakthrough after nearly three years of war. But the challenge goes well beyond the language of the agreement. Hamas’ weapons remain one of the biggest barriers to reconstruction and postwar governance in Gaza, and the deal will test whether the Board of Peace can oversee a genuine transition — or whether Hamas can use the process to endure, rebuild and preserve influence.

Central to the strategy is Trump’s Board of Peace, the mechanism he has chosen to carry out his Gaza policy and potentially serve as a model for resolving other international conflicts. Trump chairs the board, with executive leadership that includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The White House says the board will oversee Gaza’s transition, mobilize reconstruction funding and hold the parties accountable.

But the tensions intensified Monday also on the Israeli side, when Nickolay Mladenov, Board of Peace director-general and high representative for Gaza, and board advisor Aryeh Lightstone met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urged Israel to halt its attacks in Gaza.

Israel appeared to reject the board’s two central demands shortly afterward.

“Israel will not withdraw from its current line in the Gaza Strip and will continue to thwart any threat to our civilians and soldiers,” an Israeli political official said. The statement amounted to a rejection, at least for now, of demands that Israel return to the “yellow line” and halt targeted strikes in Gaza.

A Board of Peace official declined to discuss the meeting but said the body remained focused on carrying out the roadmap.

“We are focused on implementation,” the official told News Outlet. “We have provided a pragmatic path forward to transform Gaza by removing Hamas from power and seeing it hand over its weapons. These steps would undoubtedly allow for the improvement of life in Gaza and enhancement of security in Israel. We remain determined to advance these objectives.”

Meanwhile, the Hamas terrorist group says it has agreed only to a phased and conditional process involving the storage of weapons after Israel stops its attacks, withdraws its forces and allows more aid into Gaza. Hamas has avoided the word “disarmament” in its statements and insists its weapons would remain under Palestinian control rather than being surrendered to Israel or an international force.

The board’s 15-point roadmap calls for Hamas to transfer Gaza’s civilian government and security responsibilities to a Palestinian technocratic body known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. Hamas-run police would surrender their weapons to the committee, while heavy weapons, military production sites, weapons depots and tunnels would be addressed later through a phased decommissioning process linked to an Israeli withdrawal.

The intended endpoint is that only the new Palestinian authority would possess or control weapons in Gaza. But the roadmap leaves unresolved who will enforce the process, what constitutes compliance and which side must act first.

Hamas’ disarmament remains a central obstacle to rebuilding Gaza. Trump has tied reconstruction to the group laying down its weapons, while The Associated Press reported that the Board of Peace had secured approximately $7 billion in pledges by February — a fraction of the estimated $70 billion needed to rebuild the devastated territory.

Moumen al-Natour, a Palestinian lawyer from Gaza and co-founder of the anti-Hamas “We Want to Live” movement, said civilians desperately want the agreement to succeed but do not trust Hamas to relinquish power.

“Civilian people inside Gaza Strip… want safety, want to stop this war, want a new government, want to be alive,” al-Natour told News Outlet.

But al-Natour, who previously was imprisoned by Hamas, warned that the group would use delays and violations to remain embedded in Gaza.

“I can’t trust Hamas because I know Hamas,” he said, arguing that the group had repeatedly arrested and killed Palestinians who opposed its rule. He said an international force of only a few hundred personnel would be unable to secure Gaza or prevent Hamas from intimidating residents and that a much larger force and a new Palestinian police structure would be required.

Drawing on a grassroots network of thousands of Gazan professionals who reject Hamas’ ideology, the “We Want to Live” movement is promoting its own plan to rebuild Gaza’s civil society and is calling for cooperation with the Board of Peace and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the technocratic body tasked under the U.S.-backed transition plan with governing and rebuilding the enclave.

Al-Natour also proposed allowing civilians who want to escape Hamas-controlled areas to move into protected zones near the “yellow line” — the boundary separating Israeli-held territory from the rest of Gaza — where they could live under a new Palestinian administration backed by an international security force. He said the arrangement could provide Gazans with a safer alternative while a post-Hamas governing structure is established.

Michael Milstein, a former military intelligence officer in Israel and now head of the Palestinian Studies Centre at Tel Aviv University, said the compromise has been developing for months under pressure from Qatar, Turkey and Egypt.

Milstein said Hamas may be prepared to give up control of Gaza’s day-to-day government and accept restrictions on heavy weapons but is unlikely to abandon its armed organization completely.

Under the model Hamas appears to favor, Milstein said, a technocratic government and international forces would assume responsibility for public services and reconstruction while Hamas preserves its personnel, infrastructure and political influence — an arrangement resembling Hezbollah’s longtime position in Lebanon.

“There is a very, very low chance that Hamas will completely disarm,” Milstein told News Outlet, describing the roadmap as the kind of “gray area” Hamas has historically used to its advantage.

The Board of Peace also is pressing for an end to actions that could derail the plan. After Israeli strikes killed civilians and reportedly destroyed medical supplies over the weekend, Mladenov, the director-general of the Board of Peace, called for de-escalation but did not identify Israel by name.

“Two days of strikes across Gaza have killed civilians and destroyed medical supplies,” Mladenov wrote on X, adding that he was working with the parties and regional mediators to “create the space for the full implementation of the President’s plan.”

Israel, meanwhile, says it will not withdraw before Hamas genuinely disarms. Hamas says Israel must withdraw first.

The roadmap also faces resistance inside Israel’s government. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Settlements Minister Orit Strock urged Netanyahu on Monday to convene the security Cabinet immediately and block the international stabilization force from entering Gaza, according to Israel’s N12 news outlet.

In an urgent letter reported by N12 on Aug. 3, 2026, the ministers called the Board of Peace roadmap “dangerous to Israel” and argued that it contradicts Israel’s stated goals of disarming Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza. They objected that weapons would be placed under the authority of a new Palestinian body rather than removed from Gaza or handed to Israel and that Israeli troops would begin withdrawing while the disarmament process was still underway.

The far-right ministers also argued that the international force would monitor the separation between Israeli troops and the new Palestinian administration rather than directly disarm Hamas. They demanded that Netanyahu prevent implementation until the roadmap is revised to require full demilitarization before an Israeli withdrawal. The letter underscores that the plan’s obstacles extend beyond Hamas: Influential members of Netanyahu’s coalition are also challenging its sequencing, enforcement and security provisions.

That leaves Trump’s proclaimed milestone resting on the same question that has stalled previous Gaza negotiations: whether Hamas is truly preparing to surrender the weapons that underpin its power — or merely buying time to ensure that it remains standing when the rebuilding begins.