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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Monday said it has “serious security concerns” over the proposed disarmament deal with Hamas, one of the conditions set by President Trump’s Board of Peace aimed at reconstructing the Gaza Strip.
Doron Spielman, a Netanyahu spokesperson, told The Associated Press that these concerns were shared with the White House after Trump first announced the agreement. He said that Hamas remained committed to rebuilding its military, prompting the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to not withdraw from Gaza before any disarmament.
“Our assessment is that if we redeploy before Hamas is truly disarmed, it will quickly expand its presence throughout Gaza, rebuild its terrorist infrastructure, once again threaten Israeli communities, and seek to carry out another Oct. 7-style attack,” Spielman said, referring to the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023 that triggered Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory.
Spielman added that a disarmed Hamas can only mean physically giving up militants’ weapons and “nothing less.”
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment on these concerns.
The worries come on the heels of an Israeli strike that killed 17 people, including children, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that has been in place since last October, the AP reported.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim previously said Hamas “agreed to the roadmap” set forth in the deal. He told independent outlet Drop Site News, however, that the latest strikes killing Palestinians in Gaza are an attempt to derail the deal.
“This escalation, coinciding with progress on the political track, clearly demonstrates that the occupation government is seeking to undermine efforts aimed at ending the war and to impose facts on the ground by force,” Naim said. “This situation calls for urgent international action to pressure the occupation to halt its crimes and comply with its obligations under the agreement.”
Trump on Thursday announced a “historic” deal to disarm Hamas, by which Hamas officials said it would abide only with the buy-in of Israel. Weapons would be surrendered in phases until Israel withdraws its military, which controls 60 percent of Gaza.
Netanyahu has not publicly commented on Trump’s 20-point plan. But Israeli officials have told the AP that Israel will not withdraw the IDF from the “yellow line” zone established in the occupied territory, which is made up mostly of depopulated areas.
The AP reviewed a copy of the agreement, which states that all weapons carried by Hamas-run police will be given to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a U.S.-backed technocratic committee, though it’s unclear when this could happen, as preceding steps need to be fulfilled.
Another person familiar with the deal told the AP that Israel wants Qatar and Turkey not to be involved in the agreement’s stages of verification and for all surrendered weaponry from Hamas to be destroyed.
Two other people familiar with the deal also told the AP that Israel wants freedom to continue its military operations in Gaza.
Trump claimed during a Cabinet meeting on Friday that Israel was “very happy” with the agreement. But Israeli national security adviser Itamar Ben-Gvir dismissed the deal, writing on the social platform X that the “targeted killings in Gaza must continue.”
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