Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday flatly rejected the 15-point Gaza roadmap that President Trump's Board of Peace had presented as a breakthrough toward ending the war, telling his Cabinet that Israeli forces will not leave Gaza until Hamas is completely disarmed.
"Israel rejects the 15-point document," Netanyahu said, according to NBC News. "The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed." He added that disarmament had to be total: "When I say Hamas must be disarmed, I mean heavy weapons, lighter weapons, all weapons."
Trump announced the plan on July 30 through the Board of Peace, describing an agreement under which Hamas would disarm in phases matched by a phased Israeli troop withdrawal, an arrangement Trump has repeatedly cited as a signature foreign-policy achievement. Netanyahu's public rejection is one of the most direct challenges yet to that framing, and it lands amid what NBC News described as growing tension between Washington and Israel's government over policy toward Iran.
Hamas responds as ceasefire deaths mount
Hamas officials said they expect mediators and Washington to pressure Netanyahu into following the agreed roadmap. Senior Hamas official Basim Naeem accused the Israeli leader of obstructing the deal for "domestic political and electoral considerations," pointing to Israeli elections scheduled for October.
The rejection comes against a backdrop of intensifying violence despite the ceasefire that took hold in October 2025. According to Gaza's health ministry, cited by Al Jazeera, at least 1,250 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,100 wounded since the ceasefire began, including 26 people killed over the weekend alone, 19 of them on Saturday. July was the deadliest month of the year in Gaza, with 152 people killed, the health ministry said.
Netanyahu also used Sunday's remarks to rule out Palestinian statehood "as long as I am prime minister," a position that further complicates the roadmap, which mediators have suggested would eventually need to address Palestinian political aspirations. The White House had not issued a formal response to Netanyahu's rejection as of Sunday night.
With both sides now publicly at odds over the deal's core terms, attention turns to whether Trump's envoys can salvage the roadmap or whether the October 2025 ceasefire, already strained by mutual accusations of violations, will unravel further in the weeks ahead.
