Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Qatar and the UAE issued a joint statement Sunday blaming Israel for stalling US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace process, according to Arab News. Egypt, Qatar and Turkey are named mediators in the roadmap; the other five states are lending it diplomatic weight from outside the formal mediation track. The eight foreign ministers said Israel’s rejection of the roadmap, and of Palestinian statehood, “confirms that Israel now bears responsibility for obstructing” peace efforts, calling the positions a “direct repudiation” of the plan.
The roadmap, endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803, follows Hamas’s late-July agreement to the full plan, including phased disarmament, an Israeli withdrawal, deployment of an international stabilization force, and transfer of administration to a Palestinian technocratic committee. The friction since then has centered on Israeli distrust that Hamas will actually follow through: analysts cited by Al Jazeera and The Hill question whether the group will disarm at all, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the roadmap as “unacceptable” and says troops will not withdraw until Hamas is “genuinely” disarmed.
Netanyahu’s rejection, announced August 9, is widely linked by regional press to Israel’s October 27 election, where his coalition is polling short of a majority and far-right partners oppose any withdrawal ahead of full Hamas disarmament.
The eight-nation statement urged Washington and the Board of Peace to take “concrete measures” to enforce Israeli compliance — pressure that lands as US envoy Jared Kushner meets mediators in Cairo and is due to see Netanyahu on Monday.
