The United States (US)-led Board of Peace has said that Israeli forces will only withdraw from Gaza once Hamas completes its disarmament, a position that came after a meeting between the body’s director Nickolay Mladenov and Israeli Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu in West Jerusalem.
The Board of Peace addressed reports on Monday around the withdrawal timeline.
“Contrary to inaccurate reports, we note that the withdrawal of the [Israeli military] beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators,” the body said, adding that “this applies to light weapons, heavy weapons, and the tunnels alike.”
The Yellow Line refers to the demarcation behind which Israeli forces remain stationed inside Gaza.
The meeting took place days after politicians in Israel voiced opposition to the disarmament agreement announced by US President Donald Trump last Thursday.
In a social media post following the talks, the Board of Peace, which Trump set up in January to run Gaza’s administration after Israel’s war, described its objective as full weapons decommissioning across the Strip alongside a shift from armed to civilian governance. Hamas has maintained that it will not move forward with the deal unless Israel fulfils its own obligations under it.
Two people familiar with the meeting told an international wire service that Mladenov pressed Netanyahu during the talks to halt attacks on Gaza. Israel has continued strikes despite an October 2025 ceasefire, killing more than 1,200 Palestinians since then, including over 36 after the disarmament deal was announced. The military campaign Israel launched in October 2023 has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza in total.
Netanyahu’s office said that ahead of the meeting that the publicly released version of the agreement “does not reflect Israel’s positions” and noted that Israel had conveyed its concerns to Washington DC.
Figures within Netanyahu’s far-right coalition have already pushed back against the deal, with extreme-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calling it “completely different” from what the Israeli government had approved and demanding an immediate new vote.
Mladenov criticised the weekend’s strikes without naming Israel directly, writing that lasting peace remains achievable if all sides commit to it. Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye, who mediated the disarmament agreement, released a joint statement condemning Israel’s targeting of civilians and healthcare facilities as a violation of international law.
Hamas said that it and other Palestinian factions remain committed to completing the second phase of the ceasefire and are waiting for an official response from Mladenov and the mediating countries.
Israel’s reversal comes despite pressure from Trump to finalise the deal and arrives months before an Israeli election in which Netanyahu’s government faces demands from its base to show it achieved total victory in Gaza.
