After days of official silence, Doron Spielman, a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said on Monday that Israel has conveyed its "concerns" to the United States."Israel has conveyed its comments and concerns on the proposed framework to our American counterparts. The version that has been made public does not reflect Israel's positions," Doron Spielman, Spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, told AFP.
Spielman claimed, once again without any evidence, that Hamas is "recruiting fighters" and "preparing for another 'October 7-style" operation. The spokesman told The Associated Press that the Israeli army would not withdraw from Gaza, where it currently controls more than 60 percent of the territory, before Hamas "fully disarms."
The new Israeli political maneuvering comes as Egypt, Qatar, the United States, and Turkey prepare to hold a meeting in Cairo soon to finalize mechanisms for implementing the Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which aimed to end the Israeli genocidal war in the strip.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced a roadmap for the implementation of the ceasefire deal, which included a phased disarmament of Hamas and other armed resistance groups in Gaza accompanied by the gradual withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from the strip. Trump called the new roadmap a "major milestone," declaring that Israel was "very happy."
On Friday, shortly after the announcement, Hamas stated its agreement to the next stage of the deal, including handing over weapons to a nascent Palestinian governing committee, but stressed that handing over weapons was contingent on the end of Israeli attacks in Gaza, deployment of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), and the withdrawal of the occupation army from the strip.
In tandem, in a statement, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), which is slated to administer Gaza, "welcomed the progress announced yesterday regarding the roadmap, and the opening of a path toward beginning its implementation."
"This development represents an important milestone for our people in the Gaza Strip. After years of conflict, destruction, and uncertainty, the priority today is to translate this progress into practical steps that have a tangible impact on citizens' daily lives. The NCAG affirms its full readiness to assume its responsibilities," read the statement.
The killings continue
PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who met with Trump in Washington a day before the US president announced the roadmap, has not publicly commented on the issue.
However, immediately after Trump announced the new Gaza roadmap, key members of Netanyahu's cabinet, including Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, rejected any talk of withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Before the announcement, Israel prepared the ground for delaying any implementation of Phase II by declaring that the ISF must only include nations deemed "friendly" to Tel Aviv.
Since the announcement on Thursday, intense Israeli strikes on the strip killed at least 21 people and injured tens of others.
Gaza hospitals reported that at least 19 people were killed in the latest round of Israeli strikes, which include an airstrike on Al-Shifa Hospital grounds in Gaza City. According to Nasser Hospital, a single strike on a residential apartment in southern Gaza killed three family members, including a four-year-old child.
Tel Aviv consulted
US officials, who briefed reporters on the disarmament agreement last week, said that Israel had been consulted at every step of the negotiations and was not being asked to do anything more than what it had committed to as part of the ceasefire and captives release agreement signed last October.
On Sunday, the White House did not provide additional comments when asked specifically about Israel’s assessment.
Two people with knowledge of the latest Gaza deal told the AP that Israel had communicated its issues with it to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who's part of the Trump-led Board of Peace. One of them said that among the points Israel wanted was freedom to conduct military assaults across Gaza.
According to another person familiar with the deal, the Israelis raised two other issues: that Qatar and Turkey not be involved in verifying the stages of the agreement, and that Hamas’ weapons be destroyed after confiscation.
Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan outlines a structured process requiring Hamas to surrender its weapons and destroy its vast network of tunnels, balanced against an Israeli army withdrawal, the arrival of a new technocratic Palestinian government, the deployment of an international security force, the entry of humanitarian aid, and the start of reconstruction of the strip.
A copy of the agreement obtained and verified by the AP details that all weapons held by the Hamas-run police are to be transferred to the Palestinian technocratic committee upon its arrival. Following this, the decommissioning of heavy weapons and the dismantling of production sites would be linked to a phased Israeli occupation army withdrawal.
'Clearly, they will manouvre'
“The most crucial issue now is whether Israel will commit to implement this deal, especially as we move closer towards the Israeli [legislative] elections with all the [expected] manifestations of radical and extremist policies,” Senior expert and former negotiator Mohamed Ibrahim Eldawiry cautioned in an interview with Ahram Online.
"Clearly, Israel will manoeuvre and will engage in a process of interpreting the text," he said. "This is why there is a crucial role for the US in making sure that Israel honours its commitments, just as the Palestinian side would honour its part of the deal," he added.
If Israel failed to honour its side of the deal, Eldawiry warned, the current catastrophic situation in Gaza would remain unchanged, to the detriment of the Palestinians living in horrific conditions there and of regional stability.
The areas under Israeli occupation army control remain mostly destroyed and depopulated, forcing the majority of Gaza's 2 million Palestinians into squalid tent camps and ruined neighbourhoods.
Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in areas of Gaza that have remained under its control since the ceasefire, satellite images seen by BBC Verify last November showed. The actual number is likely much higher, with imagery unavailable for some areas.
Despite the October ceasefire framework, Israeli strikes in Gaza have continued unabated, killing 1,230 Palestinians, including at least 270 children.
In tandem, Tel Aviv has been stalling to fulfil its phase 1 obligations of the 20-point plan, including maintaining restrictions on the entry of food and medicine to a population that faced famine in 2025 amid Israeli starvation policies.
To date, the total number of people killed in the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza has surpassed 73,000, with the majority being children and women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Senior Palestinian political figure Mohammad Dahlan, who has been deeply involved in the Gaza plan, stated following the Board of Peace roadmap that he had spoken directly with Trump's son-in-law and aide, Jared Kushner, who told him Israel would end its strikes in Gaza effective Sunday.
Dahlan quickly revised his social media post, altering it to say Kushner was "working with the Israeli side to halt the attacks."
He later accused Netanyahu of actively working "to obstruct the most promising opportunity to begin ending this war."
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