Israel’s conditions put the sequencing of disarmament and an Israeli military withdrawal at the center of the latest Gaza talks. The dispute tests whether President Donald Trump’s proposed roadmap can bridge demands that each side sees as essential to its security.
Israel has rejected the next phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding Hamas’s full disarmament before Israel moves forward. Israel also says its forces will not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas is genuinely disarmed, turning the proposed next step in Trump’s plan into a standoff over who must act first.
The dispute matters because Trump’s roadmap was intended to move beyond an initial ceasefire and tackle the hardest issues left unresolved: weapons, security control and further Israeli withdrawals. Those questions now appear inseparable.
Israel’s condition is full disarmament
Netanyahu’s position is that Hamas must give up its weapons in a real, verifiable way before Israeli forces pull back further. At a meeting with ministers, he drew a distinction between what he called genuine disarmament and a symbolic or incomplete arrangement, according to NPR.
That is a higher bar than merely announcing an intention to disarm. It raises immediate practical questions: who collects the weapons, who verifies that armed groups have complied, and who provides security while that process takes place.
Israel’s concern is rooted in its stated objective of preventing Hamas from rebuilding military capacity after the war. For Netanyahu’s government, a withdrawal without a credible enforcement mechanism could leave Israel exposed and allow Hamas or other armed groups to reassert control.
The withdrawal dispute sits at center
Trump’s newer 15-point roadmap reportedly envisioned Hamas disarmament and an Israeli withdrawal as parts of a phased process. That sequencing matters. A phased approach can allow each side to take incremental steps while outside actors monitor compliance, rather than requiring one party to make an irreversible concession at the outset.
Israel’s position effectively reverses that order. It says there can be no further withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza until Hamas’s weapons are fully decommissioned.
Hamas has taken the opposing view. A senior Hamas official previously told NPR that the group would hand over weapons only if Israel withdrew from parts of Gaza first. The result is a classic implementation deadlock: Israel says disarmament must precede withdrawal, while Hamas links disarmament to withdrawal.
Why a phased deal is difficult
The initial ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, reached in October 2025 alongside Trump’s broader Gaza framework, addressed some urgent issues without resolving the conflict’s deepest political and security disputes. It halted major fighting, provided for the release of remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, increased humanitarian aid and called for a partial Israeli withdrawal, according to NPR.
But later-stage questions were always likely to be more difficult. Ending active combat is not the same as deciding who governs Gaza, who polices it, what happens to armed factions, and where Israeli troops are positioned.
Trump said in late July that his Board of Peace had reached an agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. Under the proposed arrangement, Board of Peace officials said weapons would be handed to a vetted international policing force.
That proposal seeks to create an answer to the enforcement problem. Yet it also depends on consent, credible monitors and enough authority on the ground to make disarmament more than a paper commitment. None of those operational details appears settled in the public reporting.
Netanyahu faces pressure at home
The dispute is also unfolding under domestic political pressure in Israel. The BBC reported that Netanyahu is in discussions with U.S. officials on how to proceed, while facing demands from members of his right-wing coalition to maintain a hard line on Gaza.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has criticized the draft plan as unacceptable and called for a new cabinet vote to end the Gaza plan, the BBC reported. Such pressure narrows Netanyahu’s room to accept a process that could be portrayed by coalition partners as conceding security control before Hamas has been neutralized.
Israel is also approaching an Oct. 27 election, according to the BBC. That timetable does not determine policy on its own, but it adds political sensitivity to any decision involving troop deployments, a Hamas disarmament deal or the future of Gaza.
Supporters of Israel’s approach argue that disarmament must be concrete before any security vacuum is created. Critics may counter that demanding complete disarmament before a meaningful withdrawal could make negotiations impossible, since Hamas has little reason to relinquish its leverage without reciprocal steps.
What the impasse means now
Israel’s rejection does not necessarily mean all negotiations are over. Netanyahu said U.S. officials had put forward ideas, some acceptable and some not, and indicated that discussions were continuing, according to the BBC.
Still, the episode shows that the next phase cannot be treated as a technical follow-up to a ceasefire. It is a negotiation over the end-state of Gaza: whether armed groups can be dismantled, whether international forces can operate effectively, and when Israeli troops would leave areas of the territory.
For the Trump administration, the immediate task is to turn broad commitments into an order of operations both sides can live with. One possible path would be a tightly monitored, staged exchange of weapons decommissioning and troop redeployments. But that would require safeguards strong enough for Israel and concessions substantial enough for Hamas to accept.
Until there is agreement on that sequence, the Gaza peace plan’s most consequential promise remains stalled. The public dispute is not just over wording in a proposal; it is over the security conditions that would determine whether the plan can move from a ceasefire framework to a durable arrangement.
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