Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israeli forces will not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas is fully disarmed, rejecting key elements of U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest plan for the territory.
Netanyahu reiterated his position during televised remarks to his government on Sunday (9 August), as disagreements between Israel and Hamas emerged over the sequence of withdrawal and disarmament envisaged under Trump’s 15-point plan.
Israel has significantly reduced its attacks in Gaza since Monday, when Nikolay Mladenov, the Gaza envoy for Trump’s Board of Peace overseeing the ceasefire, met Netanyahu.
A source familiar with Israel’s position said the military had agreed to act only against what it considered immediate threats and to stop targeted assassinations that had previously been carried out on a near-daily basis.
The development comes as Netanyahu campaigns for re-election ahead of a vote scheduled for 27 October. He faces pressure from far-right members of his government opposed to concessions in Gaza, while Trump is pushing for progress towards ending the conflict.
Trump said last month that progress had been made on his plan, under which Israeli forces would withdraw as Hamas disarms, while an International Stabilization Force would work alongside a new Palestinian police force to secure Gaza.
However, Israel and Hamas remain divided over which steps should come first.
Israel says its troops will not withdraw until Hamas has disarmed, while Hamas insists Israel must halt attacks and begin withdrawing before the group implements provisions concerning its weapons.
“Israel does not accept the 15-point document,” Netanyahu told ministers.
He said the Israeli military “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed”, adding that this applied to heavy and light weapons and must amount to “genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament”.
Netanyahu said Israel remained in talks with the U.S. over the proposal.
“They have ideas, some of which are acceptable to us and some of which are unacceptable to us,” he said.
Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told Reuters that the group remained committed to a roadmap agreed with mediators in Cairo 10 days earlier.
He called on mediators and the U.S. to press Netanyahu’s government to follow the roadmap and accused the Israeli prime minister of obstructing progress for domestic political reasons.
Hamas has avoided using the term “disarmament”, saying instead that it agreed to hand over weapons to be stored under a U.S.-backed Palestinian technocratic administration that would govern Gaza under the supervision of Trump’s Board of Peace.
The group says implementation depends on Israel first meeting its own commitments, including withdrawal.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomed Netanyahu’s stance, saying the military should not withdraw “even a millimetre” from Gaza before Hamas is completely dismantled and demobilised.
Smotrich also said reconstruction in Gaza should not begin until Hamas had been fully disarmed.
Trump said last month that Hamas, which governed Gaza for nearly two decades before carrying out the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war, had agreed to give up its weapons.
Since the U.S.-mediated agreement reached in October to end the war, Israel had continued targeting militants it said were involved in the October 2023 attack before halting targeted strikes on Monday.
More than 1,250 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Hamas has not disclosed how many of its fighters have been killed.
Israeli forces occupy around two-thirds of the Strip, while most of Gaza’s population of more than two million people is concentrated in a narrow coastal area, with many living in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.
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