Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected US President Donald Trump’s plan and his peace proposal for the Gaza Strip. He stated that the Israel Defence Forces would not withdraw its troops until the armed group Hamas (designated as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US) had been completely disarmed.
“And when I say that Hamas must be disarmed, I mean, in particular, heavy weaponry – all types of weapons. And we are talking about genuine disarmament, not a sham one,” Netanyahu said on 9 August at the start of a Cabinet meeting.
Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, stated that the group remains committed to the roadmap drawn up by Trump’s Peace Council. He called on the US and mediators to put pressure on Netanyahu, according to CNN.
At the end of July, US President Donald Trump announced that the Peace Council he had established had reached a “historic agreement” providing for the “complete disarmament” of “Hamas” and “all other armed groups” in the Gaza Strip. According to Trump, this deal would be an important step towards “Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government”, and that Israel would receive “the security it deserves, as Gaza will no longer be used as a base for terrorist attacks”.
Following Trump’s statement, a Hamas spokesperson, Razi Hamad, said that the group would only be disarmed if Israeli troops withdrew from the Gaza Strip.
In May, Nikolay Mladenov, the High Representative of the Peace Council for Gaza, published a 15-point plan for the implementation of ‘President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza’. In particular, it provides for ‘the separation of armed structures from the governing system’, phased disarmament under international supervision, the phased withdrawal of the Israel Defence Forces, and the transfer of responsibility for security in fully demilitarised zones to Palestinian civilian authorities.