Israel rejects Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, Netanyahu says

(NBC News)- Israel will not accept the 15-point plan for Gaza set out by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

“I want to clarify this: Israel rejects the 15-point document. I have heard people saying, ‘You didn’t say that.’ So here I am saying it again,” he told a Cabinet meeting, referring to the peace plan set out by Trump last year. “The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed,” he added.

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Trump last month touted a breakthrough in his Gaza peace plan, saying that Hamas has agreed to lay down arms.

The peace plan called for a phased withdrawal of Israel’s troops from Gaza alongside the disarmament of Hamas, but Netanyahu said that Israeli forces are not going anywhere until Hamas completely disarms first.

“When I say Hamas must be disarmed, I mean heavy weapons, lighter weapons, all weapons. We are talking about genuine disarmament, not a fictitious one,” Netanyahu said Sunday.

Hamas had last month said that it would disarm, but only after Israel withdraws completely and stops all hostilities. The group also said that laying down its heavy weapons would come later in the process, conditional on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, reaffirmed that “as long as I am prime minister, there will be no Palestinian state.” The leader is currently facing a domestic political battle for survival ahead of elections set for October, with the status of the Gaza and Iran conflicts likely to prove pivotal.

The explicit rejection of the peace plan, frequently touted by Trump as a key foreign policy achievement, also comes after months of growing tensions between the White House and Israel’s leadership over Iran. The White House did not immediately comment on the remarks.

Netanyahu said of Washington: “We are currently discussing this issue with the Americans. They have ideas; some of them are acceptable to us and some are not, and we know how to stand firm on these matters.”

The Israeli leader may consider it worthwhile to “enter a new confrontation with President Trump,” said Ronni Shaked, a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as his own popularity wanes ahead of October’s election.

“After three years, he is without any victory, and he just wants to show now to the people of Israel, before the election, that look at me, I have victory, and the victory is that we are going to disarm Hamas,” Shaked said in a phone interview, referring to the tactic as an “illusion.”

Responding to Netanyahu’s statement Sunday, senior Hamas official Basim Naeem said that the group expects the mediators and the U.S. to “exert pressure” on Netanyahu and his government to abide by the road map and “prevent him from obstructing the process for domestic political and electoral considerations.”

A further Hamas statement reaffirmed its commitment to the agreed-upon roadmap, reiterating the group’s “seriousness in engaging responsibly in implementing the fifteen points agreed upon and establishing a clear timetable for their implementation.”

Mohammad Dahlan, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that Netanyahu’s announcement “represents a challenge, contempt, and deception of the American administration and President Trump’s team,” adding that Washington “now realizes that Netanyahu is an obstacle to achieving security and stability.”

Netanyahu’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomed his announcement after seeking to pressure the leader into a more hardline stance. “I congratulate the Prime Minister for responding to our demand and clarifying unequivocally,” he said in a post on X.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty meanwhile “emphasized the necessity for all parties to fulfill their commitments and refrain from taking any actions that could hinder the implementation process or undermine the progress achieved,” his office said in a statement.

Despite agreeing to halt attacks last October, Israel has continued its deadly strikes on the enclave. On Saturday, recovery operations concluded at the Karam Building in Gaza after 19 dead bodies were found under the rubble, according to the Gaza civil defense. Israel and Hamas both regularly accuse the other of breaching the ceasefire.

Over 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the enclave’s health officials, including over 1,200 people since the ceasefire began in October. Israel said it launched its war in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.