Netanyahu rejects Gaza withdrawal before Hamas disarmament
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the Israeli military will not withdraw from its current lines in Gaza until Hamas has completely disarmed. His comments push back against a draft agreement proposed by the White House and linked to Donald Trump's Board of Peace. The remarks cast fresh doubt on a plan that had been presented as a possible breakthrough in efforts to end the war.
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According to the supplied material, the draft would have seen Hamas begin disarming while Israel halted strikes and started withdrawing from roughly 60% of Gaza that it currently controls. Netanyahu said Israel had not agreed to that sequence and repeated that disarmament must come first. He added that Israeli forces would continue to do whatever is necessary to protect themselves, their territory and their citizens.
The exchange marks a rare public sign of friction between the Israeli government and the Trump administration. It also comes after a ceasefire arrangement last October that ended major military operations, secured the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza and was meant to lead to further steps on disarmament, an international stabilisation force and an independent Palestinian administration. The supplied rows say that process has since stalled on other fronts.
The dispute matters because sequencing has become the central obstacle in the latest diplomatic effort. Israel says everything hinges on Hamas giving up its weapons, while Hamas says Israel must end its military campaign and withdraw. That gap goes to the heart of whether any ceasefire can move from a temporary pause to a durable political settlement.
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Hamas has held power in Gaza since a brief civil war in 2007, and the current war began after the Hamas attack on southern Israel in October 2023. The supplied material says the Israeli offensive has caused very heavy losses in Gaza, with 73,375 people reported killed since then. The latest comments therefore sit within a wider conflict that has repeatedly moved between battlefield escalation and fragile diplomatic initiatives.
What remains unclear is whether the White House will revise the draft, whether Israel will soften its position, and how any disarmament process would be verified if talks continue. It is also not clear how the proposed withdrawal timetable would work in practice or whether Hamas will respond to Netanyahu's latest remarks. For now, the plan remains under strain, with the main parties still divided over the order of steps needed to end the war.
A Trump-backed Peace Council has pressed Israel to stop its attacks in Gaza after a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday. The request came as the diplomatic push around a Hamas disarmament agreement entered a more public phase, with the council saying the aim is to move from armed rule to civilian administration in the territory. Israeli strikes continued despite the appeal, and local authorities said 17 people were killed between Saturday and Sunday.
The meeting was led by Nikolay Mladenov, described in the supplied material as the council's senior representative for Gaza. According to the rows provided, he urged Netanyahu to halt the bombardment while the council reiterated that the objective is the complete removal of weapons from Gaza and a transition to a technocratic government. Israel said it had "serious security concerns" and said those concerns were shared with the United States.
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The latest exchange adds another layer of friction to a plan that Washington has presented as a route toward a broader ceasefire framework. The stakes are high because the Gaza war, which began in October 2023 after the Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, has already caused very heavy losses in the territory. The supplied material says 73,375 people have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military offensive since then.
Even within the narrower ceasefire and disarmament track, the weekend deaths show that military pressure has not stopped while diplomacy continues. That makes the question of verification, sequencing and security guarantees central to whether the proposal can move forward. The current dispute also reflects a familiar pattern in the conflict: diplomatic announcements are often followed by disagreement over how they should be implemented on the ground.
The supplied rows say Trump announced an agreement last week that Hamas accepted, opening the way for a technocratic administration in Gaza. Israel, however, has argued that the public version of the plan does not reflect its position and has insisted on what it calls genuine, verifiable and irreversible demilitarisation before any wider arrangement can proceed. Those differences help explain why the latest pressure campaign has not yet produced a halt in the strikes.
The broader context is a war that has repeatedly moved between battlefield escalation and fragile political initiatives. The plan described in the supplied material is linked to a wider ceasefire arrangement and to a post-war governance model for Gaza, but the practical role of any new institutions remains unclear. The continued bombardment also raises questions about whether Palestinian factions will remain engaged if attacks continue, and whether the United States will adjust the text in response to Israeli objections.
For now, the council's intervention shows that the diplomatic track is active, but not yet settled. What remains unclear is whether Israel will change its military posture in response to the council's request, whether Hamas will issue any further response, and how the disarmament terms would be monitored if the deal advances. It is also uncertain whether the United States will revise the proposal or continue to press ahead with the current version.
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