Khaled Mashal, a senior Hamas leader speaking in Doha on February 8, said his movement will not hand over its weapons or accept external governance of Gaza. He insisted that resistance and its arms cannot be declared illegal and framed armed struggle as the right of an occupied people.
Mashal’s remarks directly contradict demands by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told U.S. envoy Whitkoff on February 3 that Gaza must be demilitarized before any reconstruction can begin. Israeli officials have made demilitarization and the achievement of their stated war aims non-negotiable prerequisites for lifting the military pressure and allowing large-scale rebuilding.
The position expressed by Mashal was echoed by a senior official from Palestinian Islamic Jihad on February 4, signaling a broader consensus among armed Palestinian factions to retain their arsenals. That unity complicates international efforts to separate humanitarian reconstruction from political and security arrangements, and it sharpens the central dilemma facing mediators: who will guarantee security in Gaza if Hamas and its allies remain armed?
Qatar’s role as host and mediator remains pivotal; Mashal was speaking in Doha, where Hamas leaders have long maintained political representation and where much of the diplomacy around ceasefires and aid access has been brokered. International donors and Israel have both conditioned reconstruction on security guarantees, yet there is no agreed mechanism that both strips armed groups of military capability and delivers an accountable, locally legitimate governing authority.
The impasse has practical consequences for civilians: reconstruction requires sustained funding, materials and security for engineers and aid workers, all of which donors are reluctant to supply without assurances that weapons caches will not be reconstituted. Israel’s insistence on demilitarization risks turning funding and political disputes into a de facto veto on rebuilding Gaza’s homes and infrastructure, prolonging humanitarian suffering and undermining international credibility.
Absent a breakthrough, the most likely outcomes are a prolonged stalemate in which reconstruction is delayed while humanitarian relief trickles in, or the emergence of ad hoc security arrangements involving regional or international forces underwriting limited rebuilding—arrangements that would test the patience and sovereignty claims of Palestinian factions and could inflame regional tensions. The standoff underscores how, in this conflict, security, sovereignty and reconstruction are inseparable and mutually obstructive without creative diplomacy and credible enforcement mechanisms.