Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet tomorrow, the offices of one of the members tells The Times of Israel.
He last met with the small circle of senior ministers on Wednesday, including Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Defense Minister Israel Katz, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and Shas chairman Aryeh Deri.
The meeting comes after US President Donald Trump on Friday said he was dissatisfied with a new ceasefire offer from Tehran and confirmed he had been briefed on ways to “blast the hell out of them” if no deal were reached. A senior Iranian official has since warned that a return to war with the US is “likely.”
According to the Kan public broadcaster, the meeting will also discuss a potential return to fighting in the Gaza Strip amid anger over the lack of progress in negotiations to disarm Hamas and move forward with the US-led Board of Peace’s ceasefire plan.
“Hamas is not complying with the disarmament agreement,” an Israeli source tells the outlet. “We are holding discussions with the mediators.”
Hamas presented Saturday morning in Cairo its response to Board of Peace High Representative for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov’s 15-point roadmap for the implementation of phase two of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
According to the outlet, there was surprise by mediators and some non-Hamas Palestinian factions at Hamas’s amendments. Hamas is demanding a full ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
It did not accept Mladenov’s proposal for a staged disarming of Hamas, instead saying that “the issue of weapons would be handled in connection with the political rights of the Palestinian people, within a national framework, and in the context of establishing the necessary security arrangements as a basis for guaranteeing security for both sides,” according to the outlet.
It also called for “establishing a sovereign Palestinian state and securing the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.”
Hamas response to Board of Peace bucks demands to hand over weapons — Arab diplomats
Hamas largely bucked demands to give up all of its weapons in a response to a Board of Peace disarmament proposal submitted in Cairo on Saturday, two Arab diplomats familiar with the negotiations tell The Times of Israel.
While the US-led Board of Peace tasked with overseeing the postwar management of Gaza has been pushing Hamas to accept a phased return of its weapons, the terror group’s counter-offer insisted that the issue only be part of a framework culminating in the establishment of a Palestinian state.
While US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war, on which the Board of Peace is operating, speaks generally of eventual Palestinian self-determination, Hamas in its response demanded more definitive guarantees toward that end before discussing the handover of its weapons, the two Arab diplomats say.
Hamas also demanded that Israel cease violating commitments pertaining to the first phase of the ceasefire deal reached in October, taking issue with Israel’s expansion of the eastern half of Gaza that it controls, its strikes on fighters on the western side of the Strip and daily entries of humanitarian aid that have fallen below agreed-upon terms, the Arab diplomats add.
One of the Arab diplomats maintains that it is still possible for the mediators to coax Hamas to gradually give up its weapons, but says similar pressure will also have to be applied by the US on Israel to uphold its commitments.
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