Netanyahu rejects 15-point Gaza plan, no withdrawal until Hamas disarms

Israel rejected the 15-point Gaza plan from Trump's Board of Peace on Aug. 9, with Netanyahu vowing no withdrawal until Hamas fully disarms, prolonging a conflict that has killed about 1,200 Palestinians since October.

"Israel rejects the 15-point document," Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting Sunday. "The military will not withdraw at all until Hamas is genuinely disarmed — heavy weapons, less-heavy weapons, all weapons. We are talking about real disarmament, not a fictitious disarmament."

The rejection leaves the ceasefire framework agreed in October 2025 unresolved. Israeli forces occupy more than half of Gaza — about 53 percent of the territory, advancing toward 60 to 70 percent by some estimates — while Palestinian officials put the death toll at roughly 1,200 people, mostly women and children, since the truce. The Board of Peace's plan, released Aug. 1, had tied the handover of Palestinian weapons to a phased Israeli withdrawal, a linkage the board's clarifying statement later reversed. Trump had announced the plan last month as a "breakthrough," saying Hamas had agreed to lay down its weapons.

The deadlock extends the Middle East risk premium on crude, supports safe-haven demand for gold and the dollar, and keeps downward pressure on risk assets as investors price a longer war. With Netanyahu also ruling out a Palestinian state and Iranian nuclear weapons during his tenure, the path to a second-stage deal remains blocked ahead of any further talks.

Disarmament Dispute Reverses the Board's Own Terms

The Board of Peace's original roadmap, published Aug. 1, was explicit: Article 8 described a process to decommission heavy weapons, military production sites, depots, and tunnels that would begin only after Israel completed its commitments under the Sharm Sheikh Protocol and after the deployment of the proposed Palestinian technocratic board and an international stabilization force. Weapons would not be destroyed but handed to the Palestinian body, and the process was "linked to an Israeli withdrawal, in phases, from the areas under its control in Gaza."

Hamas and other Palestinian factions accepted those terms, calling what they saw as an American and Israeli bluff. Within days, board chair Nickolay Mladenov met Netanyahu and the board issued a clarifying statement saying Israel would withdraw only after the Palestinians had completely disarmed — reversing the sequencing that had made the deal acceptable.

The reversal exposes a deeper fault line in the two-state framework. Polling by the People Company for Polling and Social Research in June found only 20 percent of Palestinians accept the idea of a demilitarized state, and 59 percent oppose the standard package that conditions statehood on disarmament and limits refugee return, even as 51 percent still back a two-state solution in principle. The last time Washington pressed a similar disarmament-first formula was the Clinton Parameters of 2000, which envisioned an international border force that never materialized — a precedent that suggests the current sequencing dispute is unlikely to resolve quickly.

What the Deadlock Means for Markets

For investors, the immediate question is how long the risk premium stays embedded in energy and safe-haven assets. A prolonged standoff keeps a floor under crude prices on supply-disruption concerns and supports gold and the dollar as investors hedge geopolitical tail risk, while global equities face headwinds from a longer war. The firm stance against Iran's nuclear program adds a second escalation vector that could push regional tensions — and energy prices — higher.

The next test is whether the board can broker a compromise on sequencing before the ceasefire's fragile terms erode further. If Israel holds to disarmament-first, the second stage of the October agreement stalls; if Hamas refuses to hand over weapons without a withdrawal timeline, the truce risks collapsing into renewed fighting. Either path keeps the Middle East risk premium elevated through the remainder of 2026, with crude and gold likely to remain the primary beneficiaries of the standoff.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.