Among the ideas being quietly discussed in the margins of Gaza ceasefire negotiations is a concept that sounds technical but carries profound strategic implications: Hamas placing its weapons in sealed depots under outside supervision. Two regional officials involved in the negotiations described this as one possible path toward something that both sides might accept.
In practice, sealed depots would mean Hamas retaining ownership of its weapons — or at least proximity to them — while international monitors verify that the weapons are not being used. The weapons would not be destroyed or transferred. They would sit in controlled storage, potentially accessible to Hamas if the political arrangement collapsed.
From Hamas’s perspective, this preserves deterrence. It allows the group to claim it has not been disarmed — not surrendered to its enemies — while technically meeting an international requirement to constrain its arsenal. Senior Hamas officials have said their security forces need to retain weapons for law and order; sealed depots for military weapons, combined with retention of some handguns for policing, might thread that needle.
From Israel’s perspective, sealed depots fall well short of the complete demilitarization Netanyahu has demanded. Netanyahu specified surrender of approximately 60,000 automatic rifles. Sealed depots do not meet that standard. Whether Israel could ever accept such an arrangement would depend heavily on the robustness of the monitoring regime and the political guarantees surrounding it.
The Board of Peace would need to be the forum that evaluates and potentially endorses such arrangements. Thursday’s first meeting in Washington was an early step in the process of working through these technical and political questions — questions that will ultimately determine whether a durable peace in Gaza is achievable.
