The US has shut down British calls to allow Hamas to keep its weapons.
The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said the terrorist organisation could not be trusted to keep “small arms” such as AK-47s and other personal weapons.
Mr Huckabee also dismissed proposals to store Hamas’s other weapons in secure facilities in Gaza.
The ambassador said the idea would not work, expressing concern it would fall into the wrong hands.
Mr Huckabee said: “I’m not sure how that even works. How do you create a cache of weapons into some kind of control, and who controls the key to that lock?
“Because whoever has that has their hands on something that could be incredibly dangerous.”
The idea for Hamas to keep weapons was backed by Jonathan Powell, Sir Keir Starmer’s national security adviser, who also served as Sir Tony Blair’s chief of staff during the Northern Ireland peace process.
He lobbied for a phased disarmament process over two-year period, inspired by the IRA process.
Mike Huckabee and Benjamin Netanyahu have been meeting twice a week to discuss Gaza and events in the region
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Mr Huckabee, however, said Hamas could not be trusted – and its claims of disarmament “would have to be observable and provable”.
He added: “Nobody’s going to take Hamas’s word for it, because Hamas is not trustworthy. They proved themselves to not be civilised people. They don’t do things in a civilised way.
“Nobody would expect that whatever they say could be taken at face value. It’ll have to be verified.”
The US’s peace talks have so far been unsuccessful, with Hamas refusing to disarm.
Mr Huckabee said Hamas could not be trusted to keep small weapons
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Speaking from his office in Jerusalem, Mr Huckabee told The Telegraph: “I don’t think Hamas will have any role in the security structure, any role in governing – the president has been very clear about that.
“To leave Hamas in charge of running anything in Gaza would be like leaving some the Nazis in place to help govern Germany after World War Two. Nobody would think that’s a good idea.”
The former Arkansas Governor said Donald Trump had made it clear to Hamas that it must disarm and demilitarise, with no future in the governance of Gaza.
Mr Huckabee, a challenger to Mr Trump in 2016, praised the President as someone who knows how “to get things done”.
Donald Trump was hailed as someone who knows how ‘to get things done’
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The White House announced that the second part of the peace plan had begun in January – but what remains unclear is how Hamas will be disarmed.
The ambassador to Israel, who meets with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his most senior ministers twice a week, said there was no timeline to deliver a disarmament plan.
The two-time Republican presidential hopeful cited Hezbollah as “a good model to say what we don’t want” in terms of peace.
Efforts to disarm Hezbollah have failed, with a deadline for the end of last year missed.
The US is still negotiating with Iran over its nuclear and long-range missile programme, and Mr Huckabee warned that a strike by the White House could happen if a deal is not made soon.
He added: “I don’t think anyone has it on a clock, but President Trump is President Trump, not President Chump, so people shouldn’t think they can string him along without progress being made… We’ll soon find out if they learnt anything from the 12-day war.”
