Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of Trump’s 15-point Gaza plan unlikely to be final word

In July, after months of delicate negotiations, Trump announced a “major milestone” in the implementation of his plan to end Israel’s war in Gaza.

Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that the Board of Peace had reached an agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in the territory.

The deal is meant to be carried out in phases, with all weapons decommissioned and stored by a new Palestinian administration in Gaza – which reports to the Board of Peace – and Israeli forces withdrawing from the more than 60% of Gaza they currently control.

Senior Hamas officials confirmed that they had agreed to the new framework, conditioning it on mutual compliance by Israel. This was widely viewed as a major potential breakthrough in the conflict. The UK welcomed it and the European Union hailed it as a “crucial step”.

However, for more than a week, Israel did not give its formal response.

An Israeli spokesman said only that the roadmap did not “reflect Israel’s positions.” A far-right member of the government, Itamar Ben-Gvir, wrote on X that the deal was “unacceptable.”

Increasingly, mainstream Israeli opposition politicians also raised doubts. They questioned whether all small arms would be decommissioned and the sequencing of the plan.

Finally on Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet, “I wish to be precise here: Israel does not accept the 15-point document.”

He added: “The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed. And when I say the disarming of Hamas, it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry. And we are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament.”

In the same statement, the prime minister described President Trump as “the greatest of our friends in the White House” but said that Israel knew “how to stand firm” against unacceptable ideas.

In Israel, there is widespread scepticism that Hamas intends to follow through on its commitments.

The Islamist movement has long seen “armed struggle” as a core precept, its legitimate response to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. In recent months, there had been signs of it reasserting its authority in Gaza.

“Israel can certainly never agree to retreating anywhere where the terrorist group that caused the worst massacres since the Holocaust is still there and is still ruling the Strip,” Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, an Israeli commentator and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem told the BBC.

She stressed that the “trauma of the Israeli people” from the deadly Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, which ignited the devastating Gaza war, should not be underestimated.