Israeli officials voiced serious security concerns Sunday about a proposed Hamas disarmament deal, even as President Donald Trump announced progress on implementing last year's ceasefire agreement. Israeli airstrikes killed at least 15 Palestinians, underscoring the gap between diplomatic announcements and battlefield realities.
Doron Spielman, spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, said Israel shared "serious security concerns" with the White House about the proposed arrangement. Israel's intelligence assessment concluded that Hamas remained committed to rebuilding its military rather than genuinely demilitarizing.
"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 militant attack on Israel in 2023 that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip. He added, "Disarming means physically giving up the weapons. Nothing less."
The Disarmament Dispute
Trump said Thursday there'd been a breakthrough after Hamas agreed to disarm under a U.S.-backed initiative. The Trump-led Council of Peace published a 15-point roadmap Friday setting out final implementation steps. But the roadmap hasn't been carried out.
Hamas said it would hand over weapons for storage only after Israel stopped military operations and withdrew its forces, in line with the agreement reached last October. An Israeli official told Reuters that Israel wouldn't withdraw from current military positions unless Hamas carried out "genuine disarmament."
The agreement obtained by the AP called for all weapons held by Hamas-run police to be transferred to the U.S.-backed Palestinian technocratic committee when it arrives in the enclave. The document also said a process to decommission and store heavy weapons and dismantle military production sites and tunnels would begin after the Palestinian committee's arrival and international forces' deployment. That process would be linked to a phased Israeli withdrawal. It wasn't clear when the committee would arrive because that depended on other steps.
Israeli Control and Continued Operations
Energy Minister Eli Cohen, a member of Netanyahu's security cabinet, said there was no agreement to halt strikes on Gaza. Cohen said Israel needed to take full control of the territory, which he said it already controlled 70% of. The security cabinet is a small circle of ministers that oversees security and diplomatic policy.
Israeli strikes continued for a second straight day Sunday. Local Gaza hospitals said at least 17 people were killed in the latest strikes, including children. A strike on a residential apartment in southern Gaza killed three family members, including their 4-year-old child, according to Nasser hospital, where the bodies arrived. The Israeli military said the strikes targeted militant operatives.
The areas Israel controls in Gaza have been mostly destroyed and depopulated. Most of Gaza's 2 million Palestinians are in the other part of the territory, where hundreds of thousands live in squalid tent camps and destroyed neighborhoods.
Divergent Positions
U.S. officials said Israel had been consulted at every step of negotiations and wasn't being asked to do anything beyond what it had already committed to in the ceasefire and hostage release agreement signed last October. It was unclear what Israel had conveyed to the White House.
Two people with knowledge of the deal said Israel raised concerns with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who's part of the Trump-led Board of Peace. One of them said Israel wanted freedom to conduct military operations in Gaza. Another person familiar with the deal said Israel also wanted Qatar and Turkey excluded from verifying the agreement's stages and wanted Hamas' weapons destroyed after confiscation.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the initiative unacceptable and said Israel should continue killing Hamas leaders. Netanyahu didn't comment publicly on the initiative.
Mohammed Dahlan, the ex-high-ranking Fatah official who's in the United Arab Emirates, said in a Facebook post that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser involved in the initiative, told him he was working with the Israeli side to stop attacks on Gaza. Dahlan said contacts with the U.S. were continuing to ensure full implementation and said the agreement's success now depended on Israel ending its daily attacks on Gaza.
The White House didn't provide additional comment Sunday when asked about Israel's assessment that Hamas remained committed to rebuilding its military. Reuters sought comment from the U.S. State Department on Dahlan's remarks, and there was no immediate comment from Israel.
The Human Cost
The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 73,000 people have been killed in Israel's offensive since Hamas-led militants attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 others hostage. The ministry said women and children make up around half of all fatalities and that its records are generally reliable, according to U.N. agencies and international organizations. It doesn't distinguish between civilians and militants. The Hamas-run government has recently been dissolved.
Since the ceasefire was signed last October, Israel has continued striking Gaza, saying it's targeting Hamas and its infrastructure.
Why This Matters:
Israel's insistence on genuine disarmament before withdrawing forces reflects fundamental security concerns that can't be dismissed as mere negotiating tactics. The country's intelligence assessment that Hamas remains committed to rebuilding its military capability isn't theoretical—it's based on the organization's stated goals and historical pattern of using ceasefires to rearm. The dispute over verification mechanisms and weapon destruction versus storage reveals competing visions: one prioritizing immediate humanitarian relief, the other focused on preventing future attacks. The fact that Israel already controls 70% of Gaza while continuing military operations suggests the government views territorial control as essential leverage in ensuring Hamas can't reconstitute its threat. Whether Trump's diplomatic initiative can bridge the gap between Hamas's demand for Israeli withdrawal before disarmament and Israel's demand for disarmament before withdrawal will determine if this ceasefire becomes operational or remains another unfulfilled agreement. The stakes aren't just regional stability—they're whether any arrangement can genuinely prevent another attack like the one that killed 1,200 Israelis and triggered this conflict.