Israel Says No Gaza Withdrawal Until Hamas Fully Disarms, Rejects US-Backed Road Map Details

Since Hamas signaled acceptance of a US-brokered disarmament framework on Thursday, Israel has publicly rejected key parts of it, according to The Jerusalem Post. A diplomatic source told the paper Israel will not withdraw from the so-called Yellow Line until Hamas hands over every weapon and Gaza is fully demilitarized, no exceptions.

The gap between the two sides is not small. It's the difference between a phased process Hamas can slow-walk and a complete surrender the group has never accepted in nearly three years of fighting.

What Israel Is Objecting To

The document under discussion, described by The Jerusalem Post as a 15-point framework, does not adequately address Israel's demands, according to the diplomatic source. Israel conveyed those reservations directly to Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister now serving as an envoy on the file.

The source was blunt about sequencing: no Israeli pullback from the Yellow Line happens before Hamas disarms and Gaza is demilitarized. That's a harder line than what the Atlantic Council's analysis of the broader Trump twenty-point plan suggests is even on the table, since Hamas has reportedly countered by demanding Israel halt all military activity, allow an international force to deploy, and accept a path toward Palestinian self-determination, according to the Atlantic Council.

Notably, Gaza reportedly did not come up at all in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Trump, the Jerusalem Post source added. The disarmament roadmap, as of this week, is being negotiated more through envoys and mediators in Cairo than at the head-of-state level.

Washington's More Optimistic Read

The Washington Post reported Thursday that U.S. officials said they had brokered a pathway for Hamas to lay down its arms in exchange for an eventual Israeli withdrawal, calling it a potential breakthrough. Michael Birnbaum, Susannah George, Lior Soroka and Rachel Chason reported the roadmap as a done deal in principle, with implementation details still to be worked out.

That framing is more upbeat than what Israeli sources are telling the Jerusalem Post. One U.S. source told Axios, as cited by the Jerusalem Post, "we think we've managed to bring Hamas to a place where they can't say no." A separate source insisted "everything is fully coordinated, and Israel knows all the details," arguing the deal is good for Israel because "if Hamas cheats, everything stops, and Israel will not have given up anything."

The Washington Post's Thursday piece doesn't include Israel's public pushback on the 15-point document. Readers relying only on the Post's initial framing would come away thinking the roadmap is essentially settled, when Jerusalem is on record saying it isn't.

The "One Weapon" Standard

A diplomatic source described the emerging framework to the Jerusalem Post in stark terms: "There will be no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people. One authority, one law, one weapon." The plan reportedly calls for eliminating every tunnel, weapons depot, and production facility in Gaza, not a limited security arrangement.

The IDF would pull back to the Yellow Line, where it sat after last October's ceasefire before advancing further west, according to the Axios reporting cited by the Jerusalem Post. Any withdrawal beyond that line depends entirely on Hamas actually surrendering weapons first. The IDF would also stop targeted killings of Hamas operatives in Gaza, except in cases of an imminent threat.

At the end of implementation, the source said, there would be no remaining terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and Hamas would hold no governing role.

The Unresolved Core Question

The Atlantic Council's analysts flag the single biggest ambiguity: does "disarmament" mean heavy weapons only, or does it include the AK-47s and handguns Hamas fighters carry day to day? Clause 6 of Trump's original twenty-point plan implies light weapons must go too. Hamas has not confirmed that reading.

The Atlantic Council also raises a harder-edged possibility: that Hamas, facing a Netanyahu government unlikely to sign off on any deal three months before an Israeli election, may be calculating that agreeing on paper shifts blame for the impasse onto Jerusalem. That's a legitimate read of the incentives. But the analysts note a competing, equally plausible explanation: Hamas is under real pressure from Qatar and Egypt as mediators, and its leadership under Khalil al-Hayya doesn't know whether Iran, weakened by its own recent war, will still be able to fund or arm the group going forward.

Both dynamics could be true simultaneously. Nothing in the current sourcing proves which one is driving Hamas's decision-making, and no independent verification of Hamas's internal deliberations exists in public reporting.

What happens next: talks continue in Cairo, with a separate diplomatic source telling The Washington Post the two sides are making progress on a comprehensive road map for governance and security. But until Israel and Hamas agree on what "disarmament" actually means, and until Netanyahu's government says publicly whether it accepts the 15-point document Blair was briefed on, there is no finalized deal, only a framework both sides describe differently to different reporters.