Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the notion of a premature Israeli withdrawal from the IDF's current positions in Gaza in a video posted to his Facebook page on Tuesday.
“We won’t retreat from the current lines until Hamas lays down all of its arms,” Netanyahu said in the video.
He added that “we will allow IDF troops to do everything necessary to protect themselves, protect our territory, and protect our citizens.”
Netanyahu also said the White House had sent Israel a draft proposal regarding Hamas's disarmament, but clarified that Israel had not accepted it and had sent it back with comments.
Netanyahu meets with Board of Peace Representative for Gaza Mladenov
Board of Peace (BoP) Director-General and High Representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and requested that all IDF strikes against Hamas in Gaza stop so a “14-day ceasefire” aimed at kickstarting the demilitarization of Hamas can begin, sources familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
The meeting between Netanyahu and Mladenov had been “constructive and detailed,” the BoP wrote on X/Twitter, adding that both parties share a common understanding of the ultimate objective in Gaza.
The BoP stated that the objective is “the complete decommissioning of weapons in the [Gaza] Strip and the transition away from rule by the gun to civilian governance.”
The IDF’s withdrawal from Gaza would only take place once all weapons and military infrastructure, including light weapons, heavy weapons, and tunnels, in Gaza are decommissioned, the BoP said.
Prior to the prime minister's meeting with Mladenov and subsequent reiteration that Hamas must be completely disarmed as a precondition for any withdrawal process, Israel turned down the BoP's request last week for the removal of IDF forces from the Gaza Strip.
Amichai Stein and Idan Kweller contributed to this report.