“Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning,” Board of Peace High Representative Nikolay Mladenov stated on July 31, referring to the release of the body’s 15-point Roadmap for Gaza and, specifically, its proposed timetable for an Israeli pullback from the Strip alongside Hamas’s disarmament.
With those words, Mladenov underscored the widening gap between Jerusalem and the international community over how to proceed with ending the war sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Mladenov acknowledged that “it took months of very difficult negotiations to get here. There were several points when I did not believe we would make it.”
U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a comprehensive proposal on Sept. 29, 2025, to end the conflict. That 20-point proposal became the foundation for United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803, adopted on Nov. 17, 2025.
Article 9 of Trump’s plan called for the creation of an international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” chaired by the U.S. president, to oversee the process of ending the war.
A day before the BoP released its roadmap, Trump announced that an agreement had been reached with Hamas on the terror group’s complete disarmament, calling it a “major milestone in the implementation” of his 20-point plan.
Even then, divisions were beginning to emerge. An Israeli source told JNS immediately after the announcement that Jerusalem continued to insist on the full demilitarization of Gaza as a precondition for any broader political process.
“There will be no Israeli withdrawal from the [ceasefire] Yellow Line in the Gaza Strip before Hamas disarms,” the source said, adding that Israel had conveyed its objections to aspects of the proposed roadmap through the appropriate channels.
Israeli Settlements and National Missions Minister Orit Strook told JNS in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that the disagreement centers on the roadmap’s lack of guarantees regarding Hamas’s disarmament, guarantees contained in Trump’s original proposal, and its significant differences from that proposal on issues ranging from Gaza’s governance to the prospect of establishing a Palestinian state.
Strook emphasized that Trump’s original 20-point plan stipulated that all weapons in the Gaza Strip would be removed or destroyed, whereas under the Board of Peace’s new roadmap they would instead remain in Palestinian hands.
“All the missiles, weapons, explosives and tunnels will go to this new entity, which is meant to govern in accordance with existing Palestinian law. It will be far worse than the Palestinian Authority, which does not possess such an arsenal,” she said.
“This roadmap leads to the creation of an entity that supports killing Jews and conducting terror attacks against Israel and is responsible for all the weapons Hamas still holds. It is an existential threat, and it is a shame,” Strook added.
Point 13 of Trump’s 20-point plan outlines his vision for a demilitarized Gaza: “All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors.”
By contrast, Clause 8 of the BoP plan outlines a potentially lengthy process “to decommission and store heavy weapons, military production sites, depots of weapons, and tunnels,” beginning only after the new Palestinian technocratic governing body, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, begins operating in Gaza and an International Stabilization Force is deployed.
The “decommissioning” process “shall be administered and implemented by NCAG in a gradual, sequential and time-bound manner” and “shall be linked to an Israeli withdrawal, in phases, from the areas under its control in Gaza,” according to the roadmap.
Some undefined “Palestinian factions” are to take part in the process, at the end of which “only NCAG shall hold, store or control weapons in Gaza,” rather than destroying them or removing them from the Strip, under the 15-point plan.
The BoP also links Gaza’s demilitarization to the creation of “appropriate conditions for a credible pathway towards achieving Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
JNS reached out to the Board of Peace twice for clarification, but had not received a response by press time.
On Aug. 3, four days after Trump’s announcement and three days after the BoP plan was released, Israeli officialdom broke its near-uniform silence.
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Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich posted on X that “the proposal published by the Board of Peace is not the plan presented to us in the [Security] Cabinet and not what we voted on,” referring to the forum’s recent decision to allow the deployment of the ISF in Gaza.
The published outline “does not guarantee the real demilitarization of the Gaza Strip; it allows for an IDF withdrawal before the demilitarization is complete; applies the P.A.’s antisemitic laws in the Gaza Strip; changes the designation of the multinational force so that it will, in fact, limit IDF activity; does not condition the reconstruction of Gaza on demilitarization; and even restores the idea of a Palestinian state as a political goal,” Smotrich wrote.
“A blueprint that contradicts the war goals and the commitments given to Israel cannot be promoted in Gaza. I will not allow such a plan to erase the tremendous achievements of heroic IDF soldiers, achieved with their blood, body and soul,” he added.
The same day, Israeli President Isaac Herzog made clear that the position on disarmament was virtually uniform across the political spectrum, saying implementation of the BoP plan would depend on “the clear caveat and undertaking that Hamas must be disarmed.”
This, he said, “is clearly the basis of moving forward to the next phase by bringing in the government of technocrats,” referring to the NCAG, directly contradicting the timeline outlined by the BoP.
The comments came hours before BoP chief Mladenov met in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Following the encounter, the BoP released a statement trumpeting that “Israel and the Board of Peace share a common understanding of the ultimate objectives.
“The goal is clear and is not in question: the complete decommissioning of weapons in the Strip and the transition away from rule by the gun to civilian governance,” it added. “Contrary to inaccurate reports, we note that the withdrawal of the IDF beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators. This applies to light weapons, heavy weapons and the tunnels alike.”
While the statement suggested the sides were moving somewhat closer together, Mladenov released his own statement acknowledging that “This is the start of the hard phase and I have never pretended otherwise. Not much of what we do now is dramatic. It is slow, grinding and technical work.”
The next day, Aug. 4, Netanyahu broke his week-long silence on the matter in a video posted to Facebook.
“I am standing firm on our security interests–we will not withdraw from our current lines until Hamas is completely disarmed,” he said, adding that IDF soldiers had been instructed “to do everything necessary to defend themselves, to defend our territory, to defend our citizens.”
The next day, Netanyahu took aim at another issue in the BoP plan, making clear that Jerusalem would not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state. He made the remarks at a ceremony in Jerusalem marking the reinterment of the grandparents of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism.
“We will not establish a Palestinian terror state here that we know is aimed at destroying the Jewish nation-state,” the prime minister said. “We understand that they want to destroy us because we promote the values of progress, democracy and freedom, which are hated by the barbarians who seek our souls.”
A senior source told JNS on Thursday that the Cabinet never voted on Trump’s original plan precisely because of widespread opposition to Palestinian statehood.
