TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a U.S.-backed plan Sunday for Hamas to lay down its weapons in Gaza in exchange for an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the territory — a proposal President Donald Trump recently touted as a breakthrough toward ending the conflict there.
Netanyahu, at the start of a government meeting, said that “Israel does not accept the 15-point document” and that an Israeli withdrawal will be carried out only after “genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament.” His demands included that the Palestinian militant group give up all weapons: “Heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry,” he said.
Israel is “talking with the Americans about this issue,” Netanyahu said. “They have ideas, some of which are acceptable to us and some of which are unacceptable, and we know how to stand firm against these things.”
On July 30, Trump’s Board of Peace released the text of a 15-point plan giving Hamas and Israel two weeks to agree on the “timetable and implementation mechanisms” for the disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
There was almost immediate disagreement on the order in which each should happen. Hamas said Israel must end its military campaign in Gaza as a first step; Israel’s position has been the complete disarmament of Hamas and removal of weapons from Gaza as a prerequisite.
Trump, in announcing the plan late last month, said on Truth Social that the Board of Peace — a group that was set up in the aftermath of the 2025 deal to release the remaining hostages that Hamas seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel — “reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza.”
He called it “a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY.”
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