Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel is rejecting a 15-point Gaza plan advanced by the Board of Peace, insisting the Israel Defense Forces will not pull back from the enclave unless Hamas fully disarms.
“Israel rejects the 15-point Gaza document proposed by the Board of Peace,” Netanyahu told ministers during Sunday’s Cabinet meeting. “The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed.”
Netanyahu said Israel is still holding talks with the United States over how to address Hamas’ weapons, but he stressed that any acceptable deal must require the group to surrender its full arsenal.
“It needs to be genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament,” Netanyahu said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he remains aligned with President Donald Trump, while making clear he will not accept what he described as “fictitious” peace. (Kevin Mohatt/File Photo/File Photo/Reuters)
“When I say Hamas is disarmed, that means the heavy weapons, the less heavy weapons, all the weapons,” he added.
Hamas, meanwhile, remains committed to a Gaza roadmap reached 10 days ago in Cairo with mediators and representatives of the Board of Peace, senior Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters.
Naim said Hamas expects mediators and the United States to “press Netanyahu and his government to adhere to the roadmap.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained independently resolute in rooting out Iranian proxy terrorists and Iran’s malign influence in the Middle East. (Israeli Government Press Office via AP)
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Trump had teased a disarmament of the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza as a landmark step toward peace, but there remained skeptics, including Israel’s Netanyahu, whose Sunday comments put him at odds with the latest Board of Peace proposal as the Trump administration seeks to move forward with a broader plan for Gaza following the ceasefire reached last year.
Trump said last month that there had been a breakthrough in efforts to advance the peace process and that Hamas had agreed to lay down its weapons. Hamas controlled Gaza for nearly two decades before carrying out the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel that triggered the war.
Israel has continued carrying out strikes in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect last October, while the future disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli forces remain central issues in negotiations over the territory.
Netanyahu made clear Sunday that Israel would resist provisions in U.S.-backed proposals that his government considers unacceptable.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump have had their differences over war and peace in the Middle East, but they generally tend to come back to the same conclusion: That Iran’s malign influence has to end permanently.
He also reiterated his opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state in either Gaza or the West Bank.
“As long as I am prime minister, there will be no Palestinian state, not in Gaza and not in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said. “Neither ‘Fatahstan’ nor ‘Hamastan.’”
The Israeli leader’s rejection of the 15-point proposal underscores the hurdles facing efforts to turn the ceasefire into a lasting settlement, particularly over the sequence of Hamas’ disarmament and an Israeli military withdrawal.
Netanyahu indicated Israel would continue working with Washington but said the government would hold firm on its security demands, particularly its insistence that Hamas be fully stripped of its weapons before Israeli troops leave their positions in Gaza.
Netanyahu also used his remarks Sunday to address Israeli operations elsewhere in the region, saying the military had recently acted “forcefully” in Lebanon and carried out what he described as “very important activity.”
On Iran, Netanyahu said Tehran has refrained from striking Israel because “it knows what a powerful blow we will deal it if it does,” while praising Trump and the U.S.-Israel alliance over efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
“I greatly appreciate President Trump,” Netanyahu said.” He is the greatest of our friends in the White House. I greatly appreciate the historical partnership with the U.S. against Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons.
“And I wish to emphasize once again: With or without an agreement, as long as I am prime minister, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Because the existence of our precious country, the country of all of us, the existence of Israel, is not up for negotiation.”
