![\"Displaced](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/gettyimages-2287846811.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n More than three days after US President Donald Trump unveiled an agreement to disarm Hamas as the next phase of his Gaza peace plan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has still not said publicly whether he accepts it.\n <\/p>\n
\n Instead, the Israeli leader\u2019s silence was accompanied by a sharp increase in airstrikes over the weekend which killed 28 people in the enclave \u2013 the deadliest toll in weeks \u2013 even though the agreement specifically called for a halt to attacks.\n <\/p>\n
\n While Trump, the mediators and other Arab countries had initially celebrated what they billed as a significant breakthrough, Netanyahu\u2019s position was relayed through unnamed \u201cIsraeli officials,\u201d foreign spokesmen and political allies, who insisted Israel had not signed on to the deal, and did not intend to withdraw from Gaza before Hamas is fully disarmed. His far-right allies were more vocal, demanding the prime minister convene the Cabinet to reject the plan and halt its implementation altogether.\n <\/p>\n
\n By Sunday evening, Israeli strikes on Gaza appeared to have eased, and had not resumed 24 hours later, but the escalation drew a sharp rebuke from Nickolay Mladenov, the chief envoy for Trump\u2019s Board of Peace. Mladenov wrote Sunday on X that the weekend\u2019s violence had \u201ckilled civilians and destroyed medical supplies,\u201d warning it was undermining \u201cintense efforts\u201d to advance the disarmament framework,\u201d and noting that \u201cboth parties\u201d carry obligations under the White House-brokered ceasefire agreement of October 2025. Behind the scenes, two sources familiar with the matter said the rebuke reflected \u201canger\u201d among the US and the international mediators who demanded Israel halt its strikes in Gaza.\n <\/p>\n
\n Hours after the tweet, Mladenov arrived in Israel on Monday to meet Netanyahu, alongside Aryeh Lightstone, a senior US adviser to the Board of Peace.\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n The meeting was \u201cconstructive and detailed,\u201d according to a Board of Peace readout on X. It said that while the goal of full decommissioning of weapons and a transition to civilian government in Gaza was \u201cnot in question\u201d by Israel or the Board, the process for getting there was \u201cstill being worked out.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n A source familiar with the meeting said the two envoys had also pressed Netanyahu to stop Israeli attacks.\n <\/p>\n
\n Any hope that the meeting might prompt a public softening appeared unfounded when an Israeli official issued a statement after the meeting stressing that \u201cIsrael will not withdraw from the current line in the Gaza Strip and will continue to thwart any threat to our civilians and soldiers.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The statement reiterated Israel\u2019s refusal to pull troops back to the original demarcation line defined by the October 2025 ceasefire agreement, which the Israeli military has since pushed farther into Gaza. Hamas has said it will only follow through with its promise of disarmament if Israel withdraws from the additional territory.\n <\/p>\n
\n While Netanyahu remains quiet, his political allies are not \u2013 underscoring the political sensitivity of Trump\u2019s Gaza plan fewer than three months before Israel\u2019s October elections.\n <\/p>\n
\n The stakes escalated Monday with a formal letter to Netanyahu from far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Settlements Minister Orit Strouk, urging the prime minister to immediately convene the security cabinet and block the entry of the international stabilization force (ISF) into Gaza \u2013 a deployment approved by the same Cabinet just last week, and meant to oversee security in a pilot zone in the territory\n <\/p>\n
\n A lawmaker from Netanyahu\u2019s own Likud party was particularly blunt. \u201cYou can wrap tomorrow\u2019s fish with this agreement; it has no meaning. Not a single soldier will move from Beit Hanoun or Khan Younis,\u201d Amit Halevi said in an interview, making reference to two towns inside Gaza.\n <\/p>\n
\n The timing of Israel\u2019s general election is significant and Israeli sources assess Netanyahu will not withdraw from any territory before the vote. One source said Netanyahu is highly skeptical that Hamas intends to disarm and believes instead that group is using the framework to buy time and avert another Israeli military campaign. \u201cHe is wary of confronting Trump directly and is instead hoping Hamas fails to comply \u2013 a scenario which he hopes will grant Israel legitimacy for renewed military action.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
![\"Thousands](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/gettyimages-2287879013.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Netanyahu, who has traditionally seen Trump as a valuable campaign asset, is walking a fineline. A senior US administration official said Thursday that Trump would be \u201cvery, very disappointed\u201d if Israel didn\u2019t comply with the new agreement. A diplomatic source said the plan\u2019s future depends largely on how much pressure Trump is willing to put on Netanyahu, arguing that \u201cthe only party that can move him (Netanyahu), or stop him, is the United States.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Michael Milstein, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University\u2019s Dayan Center and a former senior official in Israeli military intelligence, said the weekend\u2019s toll was no accident and was likely sending one of two signals \u201cIt is an Israeli attempt to say that we are moving forward despite the restrictions \u2026 or it reflects a fear that the gate is about to close soon, so let\u2019s clean out the bank,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Milstein also agreed the key factor now is Trump.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf he presses Netanyahu to accept withdrawal terms before the election, that would amount to a political blow.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Milstein said he expects Netanyahu to choose delaying tactics rather than outright rejection.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cAs long as there is no clear roadmap forward, with timetables and commitments to practical things, it is better for him to remain silent and move the discussion to after the elections,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n But with his right-wing allies clamoring for rejection, that silence might be hard for the Israeli leader to sustain.\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN\u2019s Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than three days after US President Donald Trump unveiled an agreement to disarm Hamas as the next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-573816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}