Board of Peace: Dismantling Hamas tunnels will take over a decade

Board of Peace envoy says Gaza roadmap offers only certain safeguard against another October 7 invasion, says tunnel removal could take over 10 years.

By World Israel News Staff

The US-backed Board of Peace’s Gaza envoy said the full implementation of its plan to disarm Hamas and demilitarize the Gaza Strip is the only viable path to preventing another October 7-style attack, while estimating that eliminating the enclave’s sprawling tunnel network by existing methods could take more than a decade.

Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s lead representative for Gaza, made the comments in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday, seeking to address Israeli concerns that Hamas could exploit a phased Israeli withdrawal to rebuild its military capabilities.

Mladenov said the framework was designed around measurable disarmament rather than confidence in Hamas or other armed terror groups, arguing that Israeli withdrawals would only follow verified steps on the ground.

He said the process operates on the principle that “nothing happens on trust and everything needs to be verified,” with progress taking place incrementally as weapons are collected, secured and rendered unusable.

Under the framework, Hamas and other armed groups would surrender their weapons to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG, a Palestinian technocratic body operating under the supervision of the Board of Peace.

Israeli forces would then withdraw from Gaza in stages as individual areas are certified as demilitarized.

The envoy argued that the arrangement should be judged primarily on whether it can permanently remove the military capabilities that made the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack possible.

That attack saw Hamas-led terrorists invade southern Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, and triggered the ensuing Gaza war.

Mladenov said fully carrying out the Board of Peace framework would provide Israel with a security guarantee against a recurrence, while warning that attempting to physically eliminate Gaza’s underground infrastructure without a broader cooperative mechanism could be extraordinarily time-consuming.

Destroying Hamas’s entire tunnel system, he said, could take “more than a decade.” The process could proceed “much quicker and much more effectively” under the Board of Peace framework, he argued.

The estimate underscores the scale of the underground network built by Hamas over years and raises questions about how quickly Gaza could realistically be certified as fully demilitarized.

An earlier version of the Board of Peace disarmament blueprint obtained by Reuters in March laid out an eight-month process for disarming Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

Under that framework, Hamas would be required during the plan’s third stage — between roughly days 31 and 90 — to surrender heavy weapons and permit the destruction of tunnels, explosives and other military infrastructure.

The distinction suggests that the political and verification process for transferring control of the tunnels could occur far sooner than the physical work required to locate, dismantle and permanently eliminate every section of the underground network.

The plan would ultimately leave only forces authorized by the Palestinian technocratic administration permitted to possess weapons in Gaza.

Reconstruction would proceed in areas declared demilitarized, while an International Stabilization Force would help provide security as Israeli troops progressively withdraw.

President Donald Trump announced late last month that the Board of Peace had reached an agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other armed factions and a phased Israeli withdrawal. Trump called the development “historic.”

Hamas has said it agreed to transfer weapons to the US-backed Palestinian administration, though it has generally avoided describing the arrangement as “disarmament” and maintains that Israel must also fulfill its obligations under the agreement, including ending attacks and withdrawing forces.

Mladenov’s comments came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected the Board of Peace’s latest 15-point document, exposing a dispute over the sequencing of Israeli withdrawals and Hamas’s disarmament.

“Israel does not accept the 15-point document,” Netanyahu told ministers Sunday, insisting the IDF would not withdraw until Hamas had surrendered “heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry.”

The disagreement centers less on whether Hamas should ultimately be disarmed than on what must happen first.

Netanyahu’s position is that Hamas must be completely disarmed before Israel gives up territory it currently controls.

The Board of Peace framework instead envisions a sector-by-sector process in which verified weapons decommissioning triggers corresponding Israeli withdrawals.

Mladenov said Israel would not be expected to make concessions based merely on Hamas promises.

Israeli forces would remain in place until monitors verify tangible disarmament steps, and Israel would retain the ability to respond militarily to imminent threats to its troops.

He also said the process could be halted if the parties failed to comply with their commitments, describing verification as the central safeguard built into the arrangement.

The envoy additionally credited Egypt, Qatar and Turkey with helping secure Hamas’s acceptance of the roadmap, despite deep Israeli suspicion of Qatar and Turkey because of their longstanding relationships with Hamas.

Their involvement has been particularly sensitive amid debate over which countries could participate in the International Stabilization Force.

Board of PeaceGaza plangaza stripHamasHamas tunnels