JERUSALEM/CAIRO, Aug. 10 — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday formally rejected a U.S.-brokered 15-point peace roadmap for Gaza, marking the first official Israeli rebuff of the plan announced by President Donald Trump less than two weeks ago and throwing the fragile ceasefire process into fresh uncertainty.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu declared that Israel “rejects the 15-point document” presented by the U.S.-led Board of Peace, a multinational body established by the Trump administration to oversee Palestinian disarmament and governance arrangements in the war-ravaged enclave. The Israeli leader conditioned any troop withdrawal on what he termed the “genuine” and “complete” disarmament of Hamas — including heavy weapons, light arms, and the group’s vast tunnel network.
“The IDF will not withdraw at all until Hamas is truly disarmed,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew, using language notably more absolute than previous Israeli positions. “When I say disarming Hamas, I mean the heavy weapons, the less heavy weapons — all weapons. We are talking about real disarmament, not fictitious disarmament.”
The rejection represents a significant setback for Trump’s Middle East diplomacy. On July 30, the U.S. president announced via social media that the Board of Peace had reached an agreement securing the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza, calling it “a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government.” The 15-point roadmap, drafted by Nickolay Mladenov — the board’s “high representative for Gaza” and a former United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process — called for phased Israeli withdrawal in exchange for Hamas surrendering its military infrastructure and relinquishing power to a technocratic Palestinian authority.
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has governed Gaza since 2007 and which launched the October 2023 attack on southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war, had initially signaled conditional acceptance. In a statement issued July 31, the group said it agreed to “the latest version of the roadmap” for the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, but tied implementation to a complete halt in Israeli military operations, full troop withdrawal to the so-called “yellow line” established under the October 2025 ceasefire, and concrete progress on reconstruction funding.
The diplomatic fallout was immediate. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, whose government has served as a key mediator alongside Qatar, urged all parties in a phone call with Mladenov to “honor their commitments and avoid any steps that could block implementation.” Cairo’s position reflects broader Arab concerns that Netanyahu’s rejection could unravel the tenuous calm that has held since the ceasefire took effect last October.
Netanyahu’s domestic calculus appears central to his hardline stance. His right-wing coalition faces legislative elections in late October, and recent polling shows his Likud party trailing. The Israeli prime minister must balance mounting pressure from Washington — which has provided unprecedented military aid throughout the conflict — against demands from far-right coalition partners, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who declared Sunday that “the IDF cannot retreat one millimeter in the Gaza Strip.” Netanyahu further ruled out any future Palestinian statehood, stating unequivocally that “as long as I am prime minister, no Palestinian state will be established — not in Gaza and not in Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical terminology for the West Bank that his government has increasingly adopted in official discourse.
The humanitarian stakes remain severe. Since the October 2025 ceasefire came into effect, Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed more than 1,250 people and injured over 4,100 others, according to Gaza-based health authorities. Israeli forces currently control approximately 70 percent of the enclave’s territory, concentrated in the eastern and southern sectors, with senior ministers signaling intentions to expand that footprint rather than contract it.
Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ politburo, said in a statement on X that the group remains committed to the roadmap and called on “the mediators and the American guarantor to pressure Netanyahu and his government to adhere to the roadmap and not obstruct the process for internal political and electoral reasons.”
The episode highlights the structural constraints facing any negotiated resolution to the Gaza conflict. Even with Washington’s full diplomatic weight behind the initiative, Israel’s security establishment — backed by a public deeply skeptical of any arrangement that leaves Hamas militarily intact — has shown little appetite for compromises that could be framed by political opponents as capitulation. Whether Trump, who has described Netanyahu as “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House,” can bridge this gap without exerting meaningful leverage over his closest regional ally remains an open question that will likely define the next phase of American Middle East policy.