United States envoys have presented a written demand for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all its allied Palestinian armed factions in the Gaza Strip, as part of a plan to ensure what experts say is the complete “political surrender” of the group.

The document, presented by US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” during meetings in Cairo in mid-March, advances a controversial US vision for the enclave, as Israel’s ongoing war and military occupation continue to ravage the territory and its two million residents, in the aftermath of its two-year genocidal campaign that killed more than 72,000 people, mostly children and women. Thousands more are missing, lost under the rubble, and believed dead.

According to media reports, the proposal pushes forward Trump’s 20-point plan, centred on the second phase of the US-brokered October “ceasefire” agreement for Gaza. Under the US framework, Israeli troops – which currently occupy more than half of the enclave – will withdraw, and reconstruction will begin only once Hamas and other armed groups surrender their weapons.

Appearing before the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Nickolay Mladenov, the Trump-appointed Board of Peace envoy to Gaza, urged Palestinian factions to accept the framework “without delay”. He claimed the disarmament process rests on “reciprocity”, stating that “decommissioning proceeds in parallel with staged withdrawal”.

However, rather than a genuine diplomatic proposal, Palestinian factions and political observers view the US plan as a coercive ultimatum designed to bypass previous agreements and enforce a one-sided reality.

Wesam Afifa, a Gaza-based political analyst who has closely followed the Cairo meetings, noted that the proposed document has been presented as more of a “threat message” than a negotiating initiative.

Afifa pointed out that the new US approach abandons Israel’s and the US’s obligations laid out under previous agreements in favour of a sweeping demand for the surrender of all weapons, including personal firearms, and links the enclave’s desperately needed reconstruction directly to this condition.

He identified three main shifts in US strategy for Gaza, which are now being pushed by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and mediators, and which seek to enforce new realities on the ground:

• ‘Militarising’ the NCAG: Established under UN Security Council Resolution 2803 to oversee the day-to-day civilian rebuilding of the enclave, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) has had a shift in its mandate. At the UN, Mladenov confirmed the committee has begun “vetting thousands of civilian police candidates”. Afifa said this is a clear attempt to saddle the body with an early security role before addressing the humanitarian disaster, turning it into an enforcement tool rather than a purely civilian administration.
• A ‘one-sided security doctrine’: Despite Mladenov’s claims of reciprocity, Afifa warned that mediators have reduced the diplomatic process to the single condition of Palestinian disarmament. “Israel is to be granted a free hand to conduct security operations against any perceived threats,” Afifa said. He noted that, at the same time, Palestinians are being asked to surrender their weapons without receiving any concrete guarantees for reconstruction, a halt to military operations or an Israeli withdrawal.
• ‘Piecemeal’ reconstruction: The plan seeks to deal with Palestinian areas “in instalments”. Reconstruction would be linked to disarmament: areas deemed to have surrendered their weapons would receive aid, while those suspected of retaining arms would be isolated and treated as “rogue zones”.

Ultimately, Afifa argued, these conditions bypass the phased framework previously agreed upon. “Gaza is being forced to pay a political bill for the ongoing war on Iran and Lebanon,” Afifa said. “The aim is to strike this regional axis, and now it is time to make Gaza pay part of that price.”

Rival armed groups and international forces

US officials have indicated that Hamas could be offered amnesty and targeted investments if it and allied factions surrender their weaponry. At the UN, Mladenov announced that a decommissioning framework had been developed with guarantors including the US, Egypt, Turkiye and Qatar, while countries like Indonesia, Morocco and Kazakhstan have committed troops to a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF).

But Hamas and its allied resistance factions remain deeply suspicious of both the security and financial promises.

According to sources close to Hamas, quoted by Reuters, the group is highly unlikely to relinquish its rifles, fearing vulnerability to rival armed factions operating in Gaza, some of which reportedly receive backing from Israel.

While the US plan demands all groups disarm, Hamas fears Israel will turn a blind eye to, or even actively arm, rival clan-based armed groups to police the Strip.

Furthermore, Palestinian analysts and faction leaders argue that the financial incentives promised by Washington are simply not there. While Trump has attracted approximately $7bn in reconstruction pledges in February, primarily from Gulf nations, only a fraction has materialised in the US-backed NCAG funds.

The widening regional conflict sparked by US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 has also severely complicated the financial logistics, as donor mechanisms have stalled.

For all these reasons, Afifa said, the chances of success for the US-led diplomatic track demanding disarmament for reconstruction are limited, and Hamas and its allied factions are demanding that the first phase of the October ceasefire agreement – which entails an Israeli withdrawal and the entry of unconditional aid – be implemented before the subject of weapons is addressed.

As Washington and Tel Aviv attempt to engineer Hamas’s political capitulation, roughly 1.4 million Palestinians remain displaced across the Strip. For them, these diplomatic manoeuvres offer no relief, leaving their daily survival entirely dependent on the arrival of aid amid an ongoing Israeli military occupation.

The United States-Israel war on Iran, and Tehran’s response, have disrupted about one-third of global supplies of helium, which is critical for medical uses such as MRI scans, as well as in high-tech industries such as the semiconductor sector.

This is largely due to shipping restrictions and the halt of production by a chief helium producer, Qatar.

How much helium is produced in the Gulf?

In 2025, Qatar produced about 63 million cubic metres of helium, constituting a third of the roughly 190 million cubic metres of helium produced globally, according to the US Geological Survey.

While other Gulf countries are not chief producers of helium, they are critical to the global supply chain because exports from Qatar and elsewhere depend on shipping lanes and chokepoints in their coastal waters, especially the Strait of Hormuz.

On March 2, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the strait was “closed” and if any vessels tried to cross it, the IRGC and the navy would “set those ships ablaze”. Since then, shipping through the strait has been significantly reduced.

Iranian officials have insisted that the strait is not completely closed – except to ships belonging to the US, Israel and those who collaborate with them – but have also laid down new ground rules: Any vessel must secure Tehran’s approval to transit through the narrow waterway. As a result, traffic through the strait has ground almost to a halt, barring a few Indian, Pakistani and Chinese ships.

QatarEnergy, the world’s largest LNG producer whose plants also generate liquid helium, said annual exports of the cooling element would drop by 14 percent each year.

How is it transported to buyers?

A very low-density gas, helium takes up a lot of space in gas form. Hence, it is typically cooled to liquid form and stored in specialised cryogenic containers. This saves space and is more cost-effective.

Helium typically has to be transported within 45 days of being liquified, because even well‑insulated tanks gradually warm up, causing the helium to boil off, build pressure and revert to gas that escapes containers and into the atmosphere.

In Qatar, these helium containers are shipped to buyers in containers by sea.

Virtually all of Qatar’s exported helium normally leaves the country by ship through the Strait of Hormuz, because Qatar’s production is on the Gulf and there is no alternative maritime outlet.

Why has helium production been disrupted in the Gulf?

Helium is extracted as a by-product during the production of LNG. Hence, any disruptions to the production of LNG inadvertently cut helium supply.

LNG production has been affected in Qatar due to attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Qatar’s state-run energy firm QatarEnergy announced on March 2 that it had halted LNG production following Iranian attacks on its operational facilities in Ras Laffan and Mesaieed in Qatar. Iranian officials publicly denied targeting QatarEnergy.

Last week, Iranian state media reported that natural gas facilities associated with the South Pars gasfield had been attacked.

Hours later, Iranian missiles struck an LNG facility at Ras Laffan Industrial City, which processes approximately 20 percent of the global supplies of LNG, in northern Qatar.

The attack caused three fires and wiped out about ⁠17 percent of Qatar’s LNG export capacity, causing an estimated $20bn in lost annual revenue for the next five years, QatarEnergy’s CEO, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, told the Reuters news agency.

Repairs will sideline 12.8 million tonnes of LNG production per year for three to five years, he said.

That decline in LNG production is why QatarEnergy has announced a 14 percent cut in exports of liquid helium.

Which countries depend the most on helium supplies from the Gulf?

South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China are the biggest consumers of helium from Qatar.

Most supply is sold through long-term contracts rather than a transparent spot market, meaning price changes may not be felt immediately.

But supplies will still tighten, as exports from Qatar drop.

Aleksandr Romanenko, CEO of market research firm IndexBox, told Reuters that a 30-day disruption could lift delivered spot helium prices by 10 percent to 20 percent, while a 60-to-90-day outage could push prices higher by 25 percent to 50 percent, particularly for buyers without long-term supply contracts.

Last week, South Korea’s governing party lawmaker Kim Young-bae warned the US-Israel war on Iran could disrupt supplies of key semiconductor manufacturing materials, giving helium as one example.

Why is helium so important?

No other element can be cooled to temperatures as low as helium, down to just a fraction below absolute zero or 0 Kelvin, the lowest temperature possible.

That quality makes helium unique for a range of purposes in high-tech industries. It remains in liquid form at extremely low temperatures and so serves as a warning system against leaks.

Helium is also chemically inert – it does not react with other chemicals. That makes it perfect as a cooling agent because it does not contaminate chips or other materials with which it comes in contact.

These qualities also make it ideal for cooling superconducting magnets, reducing their electrical resistance to near zero.

What is it used for?

These properties mean that liquid helium has long been an essential component in running Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines.

MRI machines use superconducting magnets that heat up and need to be cooled. Helium cooling allows the magnets to generate magnetic fields powerful enough to create clear images of the inside of the human body.

About a quarter of the helium used worldwide is used for the cooling of superconducting magnets, and demand is on the rise, according to the German engineering group Siemens.

Additionally, helium is used in the production of semiconductor chips. Semiconductors are special materials, usually silicon-based, used to make the chips that power almost all modern electronics, from smartphones and cars to data centres and military systems.

Helium is also used to fill party balloons, weather balloons, and some airships because it’s lighter than air and nonflammable.

What will happen if countries cannot get helium?

Helium does not have an artificial substitute. Hence, a helium shortage would create a gap in technological advancement.

But this isn’t a new threat.

The crisis started by the war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is the fifth occasion since 2006 when the world has grappled with a helium supply shortage.

The medical industry, in particular, has been attempting to adapt. In 2002, Chinese researchers announced that they had developed a new technology that could allow for helium-free MRI scanners, using a new, super-cold material.

Separately, researchers have developed MRI machines that can recycle helium, thereby reducing their consumption of it.

Still, for now, most MRI machines around the world rely on liquid helium.

Who else produces helium, and can they increase production easily?

The US is the largest producer of helium worldwide, producing 81 million cubic metres – more than 40 percent of global supplies.

Texas-headquartered Exxon Mobil is the largest helium producer outside Qatar, while Canada-based North American Helium and smaller developers such as Helix Exploration and Blue Star Helium could see stronger demand, Anish Kapadia, CEO of market research firm AKAP Energy, told Reuters.

But despite this production, North American consumers also depend on Gulf helium.

Airgas, a subsidiary of French industrial gases group Air Liquide that is among the largest distributors of helium in the US, declared force majeure last week, announcing that it was cutting its shipments of the gas by half.

Air Liquide, its parent company, announced last week that it was planning to reallocate its helium supply chain to access the gas from other regions. The announcement was made during the opening of a new advanced materials factory in Taichung, Taiwan. Air Liquide said it relied on multiple sources in different continents and on its storage cavern in Europe.

Maha is the paternal aunt of Hamza’s father, Omar al-Rubaie. She and her sister, Huriya, raised Omar beginning when he was 15 along with his two brothers after their father was killed in the 2008 Gaza war and their mother remarried.

“I raised the father when he was orphaned as a child, and now I am raising the son after he too became an orphan,” Maha explains, looking sorrowfully at the baby.

Hamza’s entire immediate family was killed in Israel’s more than two-year genocidal war on Gaza.

On March 18, 2024, as Maha prepared food with Hamza’s mother, Diana, to break their Ramadan fast, an Israeli bomb struck their five-storey home in Gaza City.

“Black dust, rubble and shrapnel filled the air,” Maha recounts.

She, Diana and Omar ran upstairs to where the couple’s three children had been playing with their cousins.

“They were buried under the rubble, … no sound, no movement,” she recalls, her voice bitter.

Diana and Omar lost their children, eight-year-old Dima, six-year-old Anas and three-year-old Mohammed in the strike along with Omar’s brother, his wife and two children.

“Hamza’s mother was completely shattered,” Maha says.

After their children were killed, Diana fell into a severe depression while intense grief left Omar unable to eat. Months later, they tried to conceive again. The day Diana’s pregnancy was confirmed, “Omar and Diana cried hysterically, caught between bitter grief for their murdered children and happiness for the baby to come,” Maha recalls.

Amid starvation inflicted by Israel, the couple anticipated the arrival of their baby, buying clothes when they could. They spoke of having more children.

“They did not know they would be killed and would never see their child at all,” Maha says, her eyes filling with tears.

On September 4, 2025, Diana was nine months pregnant when her and Omar’s tent was bombed beside the school where Maha and the rest of their family live. Diana’s mother was killed, and the dying couple was rushed to the hospital. Diana’s sister begged the doctors to save the baby, and an emergency caesarean section was performed in a hospital corridor moments after Diana died.

“Imagine that – his date of birth is the same as the date of death of his parents, … his dearest people,” Maha says, her voice breaking. “We received a birth certificate and two death certificates at the same time.”

Immediately after his birth, the newborn was transferred to another hospital for neonatal intensive care as he struggled to breathe.

Maha saw the baby inside the incubator for the first time as doctors fitted him with a breathing tube.

“After five days, his face improved, and we named him Hamza,” Maha says, explaining how Omar had wanted a name that was different from those of his dead children, so they chose Hamza, a name he loved.

Maha remembers the first time she held him.

“[His] face was beautiful, radiant. … Seeing him lifted some of the sorrow and grief from our hearts amid all the misery surrounding us.”

Political commentator Abed Abou Shhadeh says Israeli public opinion is increasingly calling for more force, particularly since October 7, but warns the strategy is ‘not working out very well’.

Germany’s defence minister says the Iran war is a “catastrophe for the world’s economies”. Boris Pistorius also called for a ceasefire and insisted Germany won’t be “sucked into” the conflict.