Netanyahu says Israel ‘didn’t agree’ to Board of Peace’s plan to disarm Hamas

Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

In his first public comments on the matter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel has not agreed to the Board of Peace’s disarmament plan, which was accepted by Hamas last week.

Reiterating comments from recent days attributed to “senior Israeli officials,” Netanyahu said in a video posted to Facebook that Israel will not withdraw “from our current lines” in Gaza “until Hamas is completely disarmed.”

This would appear to go against the disarmament plan, which requires Israel to pull back to the original Yellow Line in Gaza. Israel withdrew to that line as part of the October 2025 ceasefire-hostage release deal with Hamas, but has since expanded its control of the Strip from 53 percent to over 60%.

While the Board of Peace indicated that Israel would not have to carry out withdrawals beyond the original Yellow Line until Hamas at least begins to hand over its weapons, Netanyahu asserted that Israeli forces will not move at all, as his election campaign kicks into gear.

“[US] President [Donald] Trump thinks — or his team thinks — that they can get Hamas to disarm and demilitarize Gaza. We are looking into it. They sent us a draft. We did not agree to it. It was not our draft. We sent back our comments,” Netanyahu said in the video statement.

The “draft” Netanyahu described was not supposed to be open for debate with Israel, as it was the result of separate negotiations between Hamas, the Trump-controlled Board of Peace and mediating countries Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the US.

A senior US official briefing reporters last week said the disarmament proposal is an extension of Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war, which Israel already accepted last fall. Accordingly, Israel is only being asked to maintain its adherence to the 20-point plan, the US official said, adding that Trump would be “very disappointed” in Jerusalem if it blocked the proposal’s advancement.

However, with Israel seemingly opposed to the proposal, the Board of Peace’s top envoys visited Jerusalem to meet with Netanyahu on Monday in a bid to bring him on board.

That effort did not appear to to bear fruit though, as the Board of Peace subsequently indicated that it may reopen the terms of the deal for deliberation, issuing a statement that suggested it was changing the terms of the Israeli withdrawal in Jerusalem’s favor.

But agreeing to Israel’s demands to amend the disarmament proposal risks losing the support of Hamas, which took months to secure.

Along with a withdrawal to the original Yellow Line, the plan requires Israel to immediately halt all military operations in Gaza once it enters into force. While Israel has pushed back on this condition, it did reportedly agree to tighten the rules of engagement in Gaza, requiring the approval of the IDF chief of staff before any single strike can go ahead.

Netanyahu did not deny that policy change in his video statement, but insisted, “We are instructing IDF soldiers to do whatever is necessary to defend themselves, defend our territory and defend people.”

Also Tuesday, a top Hamas official gave an interview on a prominent program that likely marred the terror group’s efforts to frame Israel as the obstructionist party.

Appearing on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Ghazi Hamad claimed that Hamas did not target civilians in its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, despite the fact that many of the atrocities were captured on camera by the terrorists themselves and that Hamas held civilians whom it had kidnapped hostage in the Gaza Strip for years after the assault.

Hamad asserted that Hamas “never committed crimes. We never killed civilians.”

When pressed about the hundreds of civilians whom Hamas terrorists killed at the Nova music festival and in house-to-house assaults throughout the Gaza border area, Hamad said, “Maybe some mistakes happened.”

Morgan asked Hamad about the kidnapping of 9-month-old Kfir Bibas. The baby was taken hostage alongside his 4-year-old brother Ariel and his wife Shiri, all of whom were murdered in captivity. His father was also abducted.

The Hamas official responded that, at the beginning of the war, the terrorist group “proposed to release all the civilians, but Israel refused that.”

Israel demanded the unconditional release of its hostages on a daily basis. However, Hamas insisted on the release of thousands of terror convicts and an end to the war in exchange for returning them. At the time, Hamad himself vowed that the October 7 attack would be “just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.”

Morgan also asks Hamad why, if Hamas did not target civilians, terrorists gunned down hundreds at a music festival. The terror spokesman responded that this “was not the plan.”

Then, Hamad cited a Haaretz report from shortly after the attack that said an Israeli military helicopter “apparently harmed a few partygoers who were in the area.” More than 300 Israelis were gunned down by Hamas-led terrorists at the site, amid atrocities including sexual assault.

Asked about the Board of Peace’s disarmament deal, Hamad said that Hamas has agreed to it due to the difficult circumstances in Gaza, but that the group’s “mentality” has not changed, and argues with Morgan when the talk show host asserts that Israel should not be destroyed.

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