Israeli Press
Israel rejects the mediators' Gaza roadmap and demands disarmament before withdrawal
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
Israel has told Washington it rejects the mediators' fifteen-point roadmap for Gaza in its current form, insisting no Israeli force withdraws before Hamas gives up its weapons, the Israeli news site Ynet reported Thursday under the headline "there will be no withdrawal before disarmament."
The roadmap, announced by President Donald Trump as a historic agreement, places all weapons in Gaza under a National Committee for the territory's administration, with heavy arms dismantled and stored under international monitoring while Israeli forces pull back in phases along an agreed timeline.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced his government from the document itself. "We did not agree to it. It was not our draft," he said, adding that Israel submitted its own comments to the American negotiators.
The gap runs through the deal's core verb. A senior Hamas negotiator said the movement agreed only to deposit its weapons in storage under the National Committee's supervision — not to disarm, not to hand them to any outside force, and not to accept any Israeli role in the process.
"We did not agree to it. It was not our draft."
Benjamin Netanyahu, on the roadmap Trump announced
Israel's security cabinet was set to convene Thursday evening to weigh its formal answer, with the war's end resting on whether stored weapons and surrendered weapons can be made to mean the same thing.
