Recent proposals for Gaza have demanded that Hamas disarm over a defined timetable. One published plan called for the group to surrender its weapons over eight months. Hamas rejected the demand, with a senior Hamas official saying the movement could not commit to disarmament under current conditions, asking, “To whom will the weapons be handed over?”
That sequence captures the larger problem, as diplomats and outside powers continue to demand disarmament from armed movements that rely on weapons for survival, leverage, and internal control. While the targeted group rejects the demand, it remains in place with no party able to enforce compliance. The designated group essentially filibusters to maintain its military capability.
While the targeted group rejects the demand, it remains in place with no party able to enforce compliance.
Gaza offers the latest example of that pattern: The disarmament demand is formal, public, and repeated, while Hamas’s refusal is also formal and public. Its armed wing has called disarmament “unacceptable,” while senior political officials have said the movement will remain present on the ground during any transitional phase. Those statements do not leave room for ambiguity. Hamas is not negotiating surrender of its weapons; it is trying to preserve its position while outside actors pay lip service to disarmament as necessary for stability.
No enforcement mechanism bridges that gap. Disarmament requires more than rhetoric. Credible powers must impose consequences for inaction. In Gaza, no such mechanism exists. Diplomatic plans absent implementation strategies do not change conditions on the ground when the armed organization rejects the premise of disarmament and retains the means to fight.
The same pattern appears in Lebanon. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, called for a cessation of hostilities, the extension of Lebanese state authority, and a zone between the Blue Line and the Litani River free of armed personnel, assets, and weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Neither the Lebanese Armed nor UNIFIL enforced Resolution 1701. Hezbollah retained its military capability and continued to operate independently of the Lebanese state. Jordan and Saudi Arabia both support efforts to disarm Hezbollah and restore full state authority in Lebanon, but their statements relate to little more than virtue-signaling on the objective. Hezbollah remains the world’s most heavily armed nonstate actor. Lebanon’s government and regional actors continue to speak about restoring state authority, but international bodies still warn about ceasefire violations and the danger to civilians without doing anything to enforce Hezbollah’s disarmament.
Although international agreements require both Hamas and Hezbollah to disarm, both parties remain armed.
These are not isolated examples. Armed organizations reject disarmament demands because compliance would eliminate their leverage if not their reason for existence. Institutions making disarmament demands lack the will or means to compel compliance, so disarmament demands survive on paper while the armed capacity survives in practice. This matters because policymakers often treat the demand itself as progress. That’s dangerous because it creates a policy calibrated to wishful thinking, rather than reality.
Gaza and southern Lebanon now demonstrate the same point under different conditions. Although international agreements require both Hamas and Hezbollah to disarm, both parties remain armed, making further conflict more likely.
Disarmament requires more than agreement in principle; it requires a mechanism that imposes compliance when the armed group refuses. This latter portion reflect the hard work that diplomats too often eschew. Perhaps they seek short-term calm and the plaudits of a Potemkin solution, but they should have no illusion about reality: Failure to fulfill disarmament guarantees further bloodshed.
