Netanyahu Rejects US-Backed Gaza Plan, Demanding Hamas Disarm Before Any Israeli Withdrawal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the US-backed Gaza peace plan on August 9, 2026, insisting that Israel will not withdraw its military from Gaza until Hamas is "genuinely" disarmed. Netanyahu announced the position at a cabinet meeting, according to Reuters, and reinforced it in a video on his official Facebook account, where he said Israel would not pull back "from our current lines" until Hamas is completely disarmed (The Guardian; Times of Israel).

The rejection targets the core design of the plan announced by US President Donald Trump at the end of July 2026. Trump described the agreement in a social media post as involving the "complete disarmament" of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. The 14-point plan, posted by the Board of Peace on X, calls on Israel, Hamas, and other Palestinian factions to stop all military operations, sets up an international verification committee, and allows a 14-day window for implementation (The Guardian).

Under the plan, disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups would be "gradual, sequential and time-bound" and explicitly tied to a phased Israeli withdrawal from areas it controls in Gaza. Control of the territory would pass to a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a panel of Palestinian professionals set up by the Board of Peace in January and based in Cairo. An earlier Reuters report from March 2026 detailed that the plan would disarm Hamas in stages over eight months and include the destruction of Gaza's tunnels (The Guardian; Reuters).

Netanyahu's objection comes down to sequencing — the order in which things happen. He demanded that Hamas give up all its weapons and called for "real disarmament, not fictitious disarmament." He told the cabinet that Israel was in discussions with the US about its objections, saying some American ideas were acceptable and others were not. His position is that Israel will not give up military positions before disarmament is verifiably complete, not merely promised on a timeline (The Guardian).

This puts Netanyahu at odds with the plan's central logic, which was built to pair Israeli withdrawal and Hamas disarmament as mutually reinforcing steps rather than one-sided conditions. Think of it as a dance where each partner is supposed to move at the same time — the plan ties them together so neither has to go first. Hamas, for its part, said on July 31, 2026, that its weapons would go into storage only after Israel implements the disarmament agreement, creating a circular condition: each side demands the other move first (Reuters).

A Hamas official told AFP that the US must pressure Israel to accept the plan, urging mediators and the American guarantor to compel Netanyahu to adhere to the roadmap (The Guardian).

Netanyahu's engagement with the Trump framework has been ambivalent from the start. At a joint statement with Trump at the White House on September 29, 2025, Netanyahu said that if Hamas agreed to Trump's plan, the first step would be a modest Israeli withdrawal, followed by the release of all hostages within 72 hours. Days later, in an official statement dated October 4, 2025, he said that in the second stage Hamas would be disarmed and the Gaza Strip demilitarized, "either via a diplomatic route according to the Trump plan or otherwise," a formulation that explicitly kept the military option open (Israeli Government; Embassy of Israel).

Netanyahu had not publicly endorsed the plan as of July 31, 2026, according to Reuters. In May 2026, he outlined plans to expand Israel's military control of Gaza, which Hamas called a "dangerous escalation." Israeli security hawks viewed a return to tougher military pressure as the only way to force Hamas to disarm and reach a longer-term arrangement (Reuters; Reuters).

The broader context here is a structural deadlock between two parties whose conditions for compliance are mirror images of each other. The Board of Peace plan attempted to break that deadlock by binding both actions to a shared, time-bound schedule with international verification. Netanyahu's rejection on August 9 effectively pulls apart that coupling: he is demanding completed disarmament before any withdrawal, while Hamas insists on Israeli implementation before it moves its weapons to storage. The plan's 14-day implementation period and eight-month disarmament timeline now face a test that neither side appears willing to begin.

The question now is whether Washington will push Netanyahu harder, accept modifications, or let the plan lapse. Netanyahu's own framing, that some US ideas are acceptable and some are not, leaves room for negotiation, but the red line on pre-disarmament withdrawal is unambiguous. For the Trump administration, which announced the plan as a finished agreement, Israel's rejection presents a choice between applying real pressure on a close security partner or recalibrating the framework to accommodate Netanyahu's sequencing demands. Either path carries costs that the original plan was designed to avoid.