JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday publicly rejected President Trump's 15-point plan to end the war in Gaza, telling his cabinet that Israel would not withdraw troops from the territory until Hamas surrendered its weapons and warning that any disarmament would have to be verifiable.
The statement — Netanyahu's first direct rebuff of a framework Trump unveiled just over a week ago as a "monumental step toward lasting peace and security" — opens a rare public gap between Washington and Jerusalem and casts fresh doubt on whether the initial October ceasefire can be extended into the second-phase withdrawal, disarmament and reconstruction the plan envisions.
What Netanyahu said
"Israel rejects the 15-point document," Netanyahu told the cabinet, according to the BBC. He said the Israeli military "will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens." He warned against any "fictitious disarmament" and said the surrender of weapons had to be real.
Netanyahu said discussions with U.S. officials were still underway. "They have ideas; some of them are acceptable to us and some are not, and we know how to stand our ground on these matters," he said.
Plan on the table
Trump announced the framework in September of last year, and his Board of Peace — the international body he created to oversee implementation — said last month it had reached agreement on the "complete disarmament" of Hamas and other armed groups. The plan also calls for a phased Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and an international reconstruction program for the enclave.
Hamas has said it will hand over its heavy weapons only if Israel ends "all forms of aggression" and pulls its forces out. A Hamas official told the BBC on Sunday the group "reaffirms it commitment" to the agreement and was ready "to engage seriously and responsibly in implementing" the 15-point plan, and called on mediators to ensure "that all parties comply with what has been agreed."
On the ground
The Israeli military has continued strikes on Gaza since the initial ceasefire took hold in October. Gaza's Health Ministry, whose figures the United Nations considers reliable, has recorded 1,258 Palestinians killed and 4,139 wounded since then, with 807 bodies pulled from the rubble of destroyed buildings. Israeli forces killed one Palestinian east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Saturday and wounded at least five others, including children, in strikes on Khan Younis and Rafah, the Qatar News Agency reported.
The war began with the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the health ministry, and roughly 1.9 million — 90 percent of the territory's population — have been displaced, the United Nations says.
Coalition pressure
Netanyahu faces pressure from the right flank of his governing coalition to reject the American framework outright. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has dismissed the draft as "not acceptable" and pressed for a fresh cabinet vote to end the plan. Israeli elections are due within months.
The mediator's case
Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace's high representative for Gaza, defended the framework on Sunday and said Israel had been asked "to give the process a chance." Mladenov told Israel's Channel 12 that the plan was "the only way forward" to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack, and described it as "verifiable, that is reversible, that at each stage can be stopped, and that we have built up with a very clear-eyed understanding of what are the challenges ahead." Israel, he added, would not be required to withdraw until it could be verified that Hamas was taking steps to disarm — a sequencing point Netanyahu did not directly address.
What is unresolved
The White House had not publicly responded to Netanyahu's remarks by press time. The rejection stopped short of a walkout: Netanyahu's line that "some" American ideas remained acceptable indicated talks were continuing rather than collapsing, and Mladenov said he expected a "positive outcome." Al Jazeera, whose coverage has been sharply critical of Israel, framed the day's events as leaving both the ceasefire's terms and any timeline for Israel's exit from Gaza unresolved even as casualties continue to mount.
The Israeli leader is set to continue talks with U.S. envoys this week. The next test will be whether Trump — who has publicly celebrated the framework as his own — accepts a rewritten sequencing or presses Netanyahu to sign the document as drafted.