Middle East: Netanyahu: Israel rejects Gaza roadmap

Jerusalem - Israel has rejected the Gaza Peace Council's roadmap for disarming Islamist terror group Hamas and withdrawing Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced during a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. "Israel rejects the 15-point document," Netanyahu stated. "The Israeli army will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed," he added, explicitly referring to all weapons, not just heavy ones. The government chief also reaffirmed his opposition to an independent Palestinian state.

However, the peace council had previously informed Israel just a week earlier that it expected Israel to withdraw completely from the coastal strip only after Hamas had been disarmed. According to the peace council's roadmap, Israel and Hamas were to cease hostilities, and a Palestinian interim administration, backed by an international stabilization force, would take control of administration and security. The weapons surrendered by Hamas, under international supervision, were to remain under Palestinian control.

Israel, though, rejects this and insists that the weapons must be removed from the Palestinian territory. The Hamas agreed to surrender its heavier weapons contingent upon the Israeli army's withdrawal from Gaza and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Following a peace plan brokered by US President Donald Trump, an international "Board of Peace" was established at the beginning of the year to oversee the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and the post-war order in the heavily damaged coastal area.