Beshara Bahbah, head of the Arab Americans for Peace Committee, expressed his belief that the Hamas movement is “ready to hand over its heavy weapons to a Palestinian or Arab entity.”

In an interview with Al-Monitor, Bahbah said that the armed group could be persuaded to surrender its heavy weapons as part of the second phase of the ceasefire process.

He noted: “The talks I had with them were informal, but that’s the essence of what I understood.”

He continued: “If disarmament is defined as handing over heavy or military equipment capable of killing four or five people at once, I personally believe Hamas would be open to that. But at the same time, they insist they want to keep their personal weapons to protect themselves in case they are attacked.”

The 20-point plan unveiled by U.S. President Donald Trump on September 29 requires Hamas to place its weapons “permanently out of use,” while granting amnesty to those who disarm and commit to peaceful coexistence with Israel.

When asked by Al-Monitor last week about the possibility of disarmament, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said the movement was willing to negotiate the second phase of Trump’s plan, adding that it “has not declared any preemptive positions.”

Speaking in Israel on Tuesday, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance refused to set a deadline for Hamas’s disarmament, saying the process “will take some time.”