Hamas signed a 15-point disarmament framework with the U.S.-led Board of Peace in El-Alamein, Egypt, on July 30 — the first time it has committed in writing to give up its weapons. The deal is phased and reciprocal: Hamas disarms district by district as Israel withdraws in step. That structure clashes directly with Israel’s longstanding position that demilitarization must be complete before any withdrawal. Within a day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the framework fell short of that demand, according to the Times of Israel.
The rejection is as much about arithmetic as ideology. Netanyahu’s coalition majority depends on National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, and both have said they would bring down the government over a real withdrawal. With elections due by October 27, that gives the far-right an effective veto over ceasefire policy — Netanyahu cannot accept the deal without risking his coalition, and cannot reject it without risking a rupture with Washington.
The deadlock has a physical footprint. Israeli officials say troops will not leave the “Yellow Line” until Hamas is fully disarmed, which has kept the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) from entering to govern and the International Stabilization Force (ISF) from deploying. Reconstruction funding is similarly stuck: the Board of Peace’s own report to the UN Security Council acknowledged in May that most of the $17 billion pledged in February remains undisbursed.
