Israel Bombs Gaza, Casting Doubt on Trump Peace Plan
Time · LC · trust 67/100
Israel hit Gaza with airstrikes over the weekend that killed more than two dozen Palestinians, Palestinian health officials said.
The intensified bombings came days after President Donald Trump announced that Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza had agreed to disarm. The announcement paves the way to implement the remaining provisions of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which Israel and Hamas signed in October 2025 . But the broader framework also requires obligations from Israel, including a halt to its attacks and a phased withdrawal of its military from the enclave, that Israel appears not to have fully complied with since signing the agreement. The framework also outlines a possible pathway toward Palestinian statehood , which the Israeli government has repeatedly rejected.
On Friday, Trump said that Israel was “very happy” with the deal, which he called a “big step for the Middle East.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly responded to Trump’s announcement as of Tuesday and other officials have voiced objections to the plan.
Instead, Israel has appeared to buck Trump — not for the first time —by sharply intensifying its deadly attacks on Gaza. The weekend airstrikes are just the latest Israeli attacks since the October cease-fire, which was meant to halt fighting after the war killed more than 67,000 Palestinians. Since then, the Palestinian death toll has risen to 73,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, while five Israeli soldiers have been killed, including one in friendly fire, since the cease-fire, according to Israeli officials. The war began after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people.
Nickolay Mladenov, lead envoy of the U.S.-led Board of Peace , suggested that Israel’s continued attacks could undermine peace efforts in the region. The Board published a 15-point roadmap on Friday outlining the final steps for implementing the plan, which includes the transfer of Gaza’s civilian and security functions to a technocratic committee, the deployment of an International Stabilization Force, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
Mladenov met with Netanyahu in Israel on Monday and reportedly urged the Israeli leader to stop attacking Gaza. But it’s unclear whether Israel will heed Mladenov’s request. In a statement after the meeting, an Israeli official told Israeli media that “Israel will not withdraw from the current line in the Gaza Strip and will continue to thwart any threat to our civilians and soldiers.” While Israeli forces initially withdrew to the Yellow Line established under the cease-fire agreement, Israel has since expanded its control to nearly 70% of the territory . Hamas previously said it would only disarm if Israel withdraws to the agreed-upon line and halted attacks.
July became the deadliest month this year for Palestinians in Gaza, with more than 150 fatalities. Most of the recent Israeli strikes have targeted western Gaza, where almost all of the enclave’s two million residents reside, United Nations deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday. Israel also destroyed at least 1,500 buildings in parts of Gaza under its control after the cease-fire, according to a BBC Verify report from November.
Israeli strikes over the weekend killed at least 25 people, including four people in Deir-al-Balah, according to Palestinian health officials. A strike on a house in Mawasi killed a couple and their 9-year-old son. Another strike on an apartment in Gaza city killed another couple and their child. Several more people were killed in strikes on a tent near an Egyptian mission, a car near Saraya Square, and elsewhere in Gaza City and Jabalia.
The Israeli military said the strike in Deir-al-Balah was targeting two Hamas commanders, and that the deadly strikes on Gaza City and Jabalia were targeting “military operatives.”
Israeli officials expressed skepticism towards Trump’s disarmament plan on Sunday. Energy Minister Eli Cohen told Israel’s Army Radio that he was “very skeptical” Hamas would disarm and said Israel did not agree to halt attacks on Gaza. Rather, he argued that Israel would need to take full military control of Gaza if Hamas does not disarm.
Also on Sunday, Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for Netanyahu’s office, told Reuters that “nothing can happen before Hamas completely and truly disarms.”
On Monday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Settlements Minister Orit Strouk sent a formal letter to Netanyahu calling on him to convene the security cabinet and bar the entry of the International Stabilization Force into Gaza. The security cabinet had approved the deployment of the force in a pilot zone in Rafah a week earlier.
“You can wrap tomorrow’s fish with this agreement; it has no meaning. Not a single soldier will move from Beit Hanoun or Khan Younis [in Gaza],” lawmaker Amit Halevi of Netanyahu’s Likud party said in an interview with Israeli broadcaster Kan, according to CNN .
Netanyahu faces the challenge of balancing competing demands: avoid alienating Israel’s most powerful ally while also maintaining domestic political support, including from the far-right members of his coalition, ahead of an election at the end of October.
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