CAIRO — Hamas is pressing to fold its security apparatus into a new U.S.-backed committee meant to run Gaza’s civilian affairs as the next phase of an October ceasefire plan begins, Palestinian officials and regional diplomats briefed on the talks said. The move would keep Hamas police on the streets even as mediators prepare disarmament discussions tied to further Israeli troop withdrawals, Jan. 27, 2026.
Hamas police seek a place in the NCAG
Four people familiar with the discussions said Hamas wants roughly 10,000 officers from the Hamas police force incorporated into the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG. In a letter to staff dated Sunday, Gaza’s Hamas-run administration urged more than 40,000 civil servants and security personnel to cooperate with the NCAG while promising it was working to protect their jobs, according to a Reuters report.
The NCAG is a 15-member Palestinian technocratic body led by Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority, under President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan. The United States said it launched the plan’s second phase in mid-January, shifting the process toward governance and demilitarization, according to a separate Reuters report. Israel has repeatedly rejected any future role for Hamas-affiliated personnel in Gaza’s governance, while Hamas argues that removing its police and civil workforce overnight risks a security vacuum.
Disarmament talks put Hamas police in the spotlight
Diplomats say the Hamas police question is inseparable from disarmament. A White House document circulated last week calls for heavy weapons to be decommissioned quickly and for personal arms to be registered and phased out as a new policing capacity is built, according to the sources. A U.S. official told reporters that any package is expected to include “some sort of amnesty” for Hamas members who give up weapons, according to Reuters reporting.
Two Hamas officials told Reuters they have not received a detailed disarmament proposal and say any neutralization of arms must be linked to a political process toward Palestinian statehood. Several diplomats estimate the group still holds hundreds of rockets and thousands of rifles, and other armed factions in Gaza also have weapons.
Hamas has said it will dissolve its existing Gaza government once the technocratic committee takes over, though without a firm timeline, according to an Associated Press report.
Older disputes over policing foreshadow today’s fight over Hamas police
As the war raged, Gaza’s policing infrastructure repeatedly shifted. In early 2024, Reuters described masked “People’s Protection Committees” patrolling Rafah after Gaza’s civil police went underground, saying they were being targeted, in a March 2024 Reuters account. In 2024, the AP reported talks between Fatah and Hamas on appointing a politically independent technocratic committee to administer postwar Gaza, as described in an earlier Associated Press story. By September 2025, Reuters outlined a U.S. proposal for “temporary” governance under a technocratic committee supervised by an international “Board of Peace,” including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a Reuters report.
Negotiators say the immediate hurdle is whether Hamas police can be absorbed, retired or replaced without leaving a gap in everyday security while disarmament remains unresolved.
