As is so often the case when it comes to coverage of Israel and the Middle East, much of the reporting of Israel’s rejection of the Donald Trump-backed ‘roadmap’ to peace in Gaza misses the point.
Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was said to have rejected the plan put forward by the Board of Peace, telling the Israeli cabinet that, “Israel does not accept the 15-point document,” the first time he has explicitly spoken about it. “The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed. And when I say the disarming of Hamas, it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry.”
Benjamin Netanyahu is far from alone in his response. For what should surely be obvious reasons, Israelis do not trust Hamas
This has been reported as Netanyahu positioning himself for the upcoming October election in Israel. And it’s been widely framed, as per usual, as Netanyahu blocking the chance of peace.
This is wrong for two reasons. First, Netanyahu is far from alone in his response. For what should surely be obvious reasons, Israelis do not trust Hamas. The idea that Israel should take the word of the organisation behind the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust that it will now disarm should be self-evidently preposterous. There is no possibility in the real world of any deal progressing, let alone succeeding, which requires Israel to trust Hamas.
That’s why Gadi Eisenkot, the man most likely to become Israel’s next PM according to the polls, has said more or less exactly the same thing as Netanyahu, as have former PM Naftali Bennett and former foreign and defence minister Avigdor Lieberman. Netanyahu is not an outlier on this in Israel.
But there is an even more important reason why this reporting is wrong. There is no deal on the table between Israel and Hamas for Israel to accept or reject; that is not what the Board of Peace’s proposal entails. Israel is not a party to any proposed deal, which is rather between the Board of Peace, the US and Hamas – and neither the Board of Peace nor the US expects the Israelis to trust the word of Hamas.
The merit of the proposed plan is precisely that it does not involve trust. It is based on verification – as outlined in an interview last night on Channel 12 in Israel with Nickolay Mladenov, the former United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process who now leads the Board of Peace.
The plan rests on three pillars. First, complete decommissioning of all weapons in Gaza, held both directly by Hamas and indirectly by the police. Second, governance of Gaza by the Board of Peace. Third, deployment of an international security force to guarantee the process, including the US military. The Israelis cannot be expected to trust their security to any of these three elements, which is why each of them is based on verification which is visible to and accepted by the Israelis.
Take the start of the process. Far from Netanyahu’s words yesterday acting as some sort of barrier to the process, the proposal does not require Israel to withdraw a single troop from anywhere in Gaza until the first stage of decommissioning has been verified. Israel does not have to withdraw behind where its troops are now based – along the so-called Yellow Line that has divided the Gaza Strip in two since the October 2025 implementation of the Gaza ceasefire – until the first stage of Hamas decommissioning has happened. In other words, if Hamas does not meet its obligation to disarm, nothing changes. Israel remains where it is now.
If – and yes, it is a big if – Hamas does indeed start to disarm, the next stage will begin, sector by sector and only after weapons in one area are confirmed as decommissioned and then rendered unusable by the Board of Peace and international forces working together.
The framework deals with all weapons, which are to be regulated and controlled by the transitional authority, not kept as personal arms. And the Board of Peace plans to hire specialised companies to destroy the Hamas tunnel network, which it says will be faster and more effective than current Israeli efforts.
Read Netanyahu’s words again in this context and you’ll see he has said nothing which prevents the Board of Peace plan from being implemented. It only moves forward if – and, crucially, after – Hamas has disarmed and its weapons have been decommissioned, sector by sector. Israel loses nothing and has to trust no one. It only has to be able to verify that Hamas has indeed disarmed. If at any stage Hamas does not meet its commitments the process halts, with Israel explicitly maintaining the right to respond to any threat from Hamas.
Israel has always been wary of any peace plan which requires it to place its security in the hands of others, but although Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar have secured Hamas’s apparent agreement to the plan, nothing will happen until its weapons decommissioning has been verified by a US-led body backed also by a broad coalition including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Morocco.
Does anyone seriously think Hamas will disarm? The point of this plan is that this question becomes irrelevant. It’s not about whether Hamas can be trusted to disarm. It’s only about whether Hamas actually disarms. If it refuses, nothing changes. But if it does: everything changes, for the better. Which is not a sentiment that has had any purchase in recent years.
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