Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel rejects a US-backed Gaza disarmament roadmap being advanced under the “Board of Peace,” directly countering claims that Israel has accepted the proposal. In remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said, “Israel rejects the 15-point document,” clarifying that the government’s position remains unchanged despite ongoing diplomacy around postwar arrangements in the Gaza Strip.
The dispute centers on a 15-point plan that supporters describe as a structured path toward postwar governance. According to reporting summarized from the plan’s publication, the roadmap sets out a gradual, time-limited process for disarming terrorist organizations and militias and calls for an eventual full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, with international oversight. Netanyahu’s intervention adds political friction to a process already framed as a pathway out of the war, with the Israeli government warning that Hamas is using the mechanism to obstruct renewed military action.
Netanyahu’s comments also sought to address confusion among the public and within political messaging about what Israel agreed to—or did not agree to—during earlier discussions. “I heard people saying, ‘You didn’t say so,’” he said, before reiterating that Israel rejects the 15-point document. He linked the rejection to a firm condition for any Israeli drawdown, describing the threshold as tied to Hamas disarmament rather than to sequencing or timelines contained in the externally backed plan. The Times of Israel
In Netanyahu’s view, withdrawal is not a matter of implementing the roadmap as written; it depends on what he calls “genuine disarmament.” He told the cabinet that the Israeli Defense Forces would not conduct any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed, specifying that disarmament must cover heavy weapons, less-heavy weapons, and “all weapons.” He emphasized that the objective is real disarmament rather than what he described as “fictitious” disarmament, underscoring a stance that goes beyond verification language that may appear in the international component of the plan.
Israeli officials have argued that Hamas is exploiting the disarmament process, intending to prevent renewed Israeli military operations. This argument is not presented as a minor concern but as a core rationale for rejecting the document: the process, they say, would allow Hamas to preserve capability while Israel is constrained from acting. Netanyahu’s framing implies that Israel views the roadmap not only as inadequate, but as a tool that could alter battlefield realities in Hamas’s favor.
Additional reporting indicates that the plan being disputed was published roughly a week and a half earlier, with the Gaza Peace Council describing it as a framework for implementation. The same reporting characterizes the roadmap as internationally supervised and describes its end-state as full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, contingent on steps that include the disarming of militant groups. Netanyahu’s statement, in rejecting the proposal, suggests Israel is unwilling to accept any scheme that would lead to withdrawal without what he defines as complete and verifiable disarmament by Hamas. Ynet News
The political dimension of the rejection is also highlighted by Netanyahu’s posture toward US pressure. Separate coverage describes Netanyahu’s rejection as an insistence that he can withstand demands from US President Donald Trump to accept the terms of the plan. That reporting characterizes Netanyahu as operating amid internal pressures and an electoral timeline, while also facing tensions with far-right coalition members who may view concessions in Gaza with anger. The result is a balancing act: Netanyahu is signaling to Washington and to mediators that the government will not move ahead on a timetable that could constrain Israel’s military approach.
Hamas, for its part, has rejected the narrative that the roadmap has been accepted or effectively endorsed. A senior Hamas official told Reuters that the group remained committed to the roadmap agreed with mediators in Cairo about ten days earlier, expecting mediators and the US as guarantor to press Netanyahu to adhere rather than obstruct the process. The statement from Hamas also accused Netanyahu of jeopardizing regional security and stability for domestic political and electoral reasons—language that reflects how both sides are casting the dispute as part of a larger struggle over legitimacy and control of the postwar track.
Meanwhile, there are signs that Israel’s military stance has been affected by the broader diplomatic push. Reporting states that Israel has scaled back attacks in Gaza since Monday, when Nikolay Mladenov—the Gaza envoy connected to Trump’s Board of Peace framework—met with Netanyahu. That development suggests a short-term linkage between diplomacy and operational decisions, even as Netanyahu publicly insists that no withdrawal will occur until Hamas is fully disarmed.
In the most recent exchange, Netanyahu’s message to his cabinet is categorical: Israel rejects the 15-point document, does not commit to any withdrawal absent disarmament of Hamas’s entire arsenal, and rejects any interpretation that the roadmap could be implemented on its own schedule. As the US-backed plan moves through the hands of mediators and guarantors, the dispute now pivots on a central question: whether the international roadmap can satisfy Israel’s definition of “genuine disarmament,” or whether Israel will continue to treat the plan as a tactical trap designed to delay or prevent renewed military pressure. CNBC
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