Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his country rejects the latest US-backed Gaza peace plan and demands the complete disarmament of Hamas before Israeli forces withdraw.
The comments came more than a week after President Trump announced a breakthrough in negotiations and the country’s BoP announced a new 15-point plan aimed at ensuring lasting peace in the territory.
But in his first statement directly addressing the plan, Netanyahu said: “I want to be precise here: Israel rejects the 15-point document.”
He said Israeli forces “will not retreat until Hamas is truly disarmed and will continue to thwart the threat it poses to our forces and people.”
“We are currently discussing this matter with the American side,” he added. “They have ideas, some of which are acceptable to us, some of which are not, and we know how to confront those things.”
“As long as I am prime minister, there will be no Palestinian state in Gaza or the West Bank,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s attacks on Gaza briefly spiked after President Trump’s July 31 announcement, but have declined in recent days.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition faces elections at the end of October, but is trailing in opinion polls. The prime minister must balance pressure from Washington with demands from hard-line ministers not to make concessions to Hamas.
After Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed that Israel would eradicate Hamas.
“Contrary to all those who lecture us, we are doing what we have to do for Israel’s security, and we can and will stand firm against our best friends when necessary,” Netanyahu said, referring to Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as attacks on Iran earlier this year.
At the end of July, US President Donald Trump announced what he called a historic agreement to ensure the disarmament of Hamas and all other militant groups in the Gaza Strip, months after first announcing a US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel.
Hamas said it would implement the deal only if Israel ceases attacks in the Gaza Strip and withdraws its forces to the “yellow line” defined by the October ceasefire agreement.
A senior official with the group said Sunday that the organization remains committed to the roadmap set out by President Trump’s peace commission.
“We hope that the mediator and the US guarantor will put pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government to adhere to the roadmap and not disrupt the process for domestic political or electoral reasons,” said Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau X.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdel-Ati said after talks with Nikolai Mladenov, the UN special envoy for Gaza, that all parties “must fulfill their commitments and ensure that they do not take any action that could impede the implementation process or undermine the progress achieved.”
Israeli forces currently occupy more than half of the eastern and southern Gaza Strip, and senior ministers have indicated they intend to expand their control.
Far-right members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet welcomed his position on Sunday.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “(The Israel Defense Forces) cannot retreat even one millimeter in the Gaza Strip.”
If Prime Minister Netanyahu rejects President Trump’s initiative, the close relationship will become even more strained. Last year, he described the US president as “the greatest friend the state of Israel has ever had in the White House.”
President Trump has suggested that Netanyahu should be pardoned rather than face corruption charges, and in March, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, “We have to pardon Bibi today. We don’t want anything to come to haunt Bibi other than war with Iran.”
But this year has also seen increased friction over Israeli attacks in Lebanon, with Netanyahu’s government only reluctantly accepting a ceasefire with Iran in April.
