Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that Israel rejects President Donald Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza.
He said the Israeli military will not pull back a single step until Hamas is stripped of every weapon it holds, according to Reuters.
“Israel does not accept the 15-point document,” Netanyahu said at the start of the meeting. “The military will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed … it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry.”
He had made the same point Tuesday in a social media post. Israeli officials have already shared their reservations with Washington. Netanyahu said the two sides are still talking. “They have ideas, some of which are acceptable to us and some of which are unacceptable to us,” he said of the Americans.
Trump announced the deal late last month and called it a historic agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and every other armed group in Gaza. The framework, negotiated with Arab mediators in Cairo and overseen by Trump’s Board of Peace, laid out a phased process.
Hamas would surrender both heavy and light weapons over several months, disclose the locations of tunnels and weapons depots, and allow a new Palestinian technocratic administration to take control under the Board’s supervision.
Israeli forces would leave only after areas were independently verified as demilitarized. An international stabilization force would then work with a new Palestinian police unit to keep order. Trump said that the arrangement would finally stop Gaza from being used as a launchpad for attacks and give Israel the security it needs.
That second phase was meant to follow the October 2025 ceasefire, which covered the exchange of hostages and prisoners and brought a sharp decline in intensive fighting. The new document tackled the harder issues which were complete disarmament, Israeli withdrawal, and who actually runs Gaza afterwards.
The two sides immediately disagreed on the order of those steps. Israel insists on complete disarmament first. The plan describes a more deliberate process in which weapons are removed sector by sector and Israeli troops then leave those cleared areas.
The Board of Peace has said Israeli forces will not withdraw beyond current lines until Hamas’s weapons are fully decommissioned. Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s highest representative for Gaza, has met with Netanyahu repeatedly in recent months, most recently on Monday, when he pressed Israel to stop airstrikes and abide by the terms of the earlier ceasefire.
Israel has already changed how it operates on the ground. Attacks have been scaled back since Monday, when Mladenov met with Netanyahu. A source familiar with Israel’s position told Reuters the military is now limited to responding to only to what it sees as immediate threats.
Approval for any remaining strikes was tightened so that the chief of staff must sign off rather than subordinate commanders, according to Ynet Global.
The Israeli military reported no strikes in Gaza for six days as of Sunday. Netanyahu said the military will continue to act against threats to Israeli forces and citizens.
Hamas says it remains committed to the plan agreed upon in Cairo about ten days ago. Senior official Basem Naim told Reuters the group expects the mediators and the United States to press Netanyahu and his government to stick to the plan and not obstruct it for internal political or electoral reasons.
Hamas avoids the word “disarmament.” It describes the arrangement as handing weapons over for storage under a U.S.-backed Palestinian technocratic administration supervised by the Board of Peace. Hamas also insists that implementation depends on Israel first meeting its own commitments, withdrawal and a halt to attacks.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised Netanyahu’s stand. “We went to war with a central goal: the destruction of Hamas,” he said. “The [military] cannot withdraw even a millimeter from the Gaza Strip.”
Netanyahu is under pressure on multiple fronts. An election is scheduled for October 27, and polls show him struggling to put together a ruling majority. His coalition partners have objected loudly to any concessions.
At the same time the Trump administration has pushed hard for progress on the plan, treating it as a major foreign policy goal of the president’s second term. Relations between the two leaders have been strained for months amid differences over the Iran conflict, with reports of tense phone calls.
Israeli forces still control and have largely emptied two-thirds of the enclave. More than two million residents are confined to a narrow coastal strip under Hamas control, most living in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.
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