Israel will not withdraw from its current line in the Gaza Strip and will continue acting against threats to its civilians and troops, a senior diplomatic source said Monday, contradicting a roadmap published days earlier by the Board of Peace for Gaza.
The statement came after officials in the Board of Peace said its high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, had asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to suspend Israeli strikes and targeted killings for 14 days while the sides worked out the plan’s remaining details.
The dispute follows the Board of Peace’s announcement that an agreement had been reached on a gradual process to disarm terrorist organizations and militias and secure a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
“Israel will not withdraw from the current line in the Gaza Strip and will continue to thwart any threat to our civilians and soldiers,” the diplomatic source said.
The roadmap was published Friday. It states that within 14 days of approval by both sides, a detailed timetable would be launched, culminating in the transfer of all civilian and security authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG. The Board of Peace said Israel was expected to suspend attacks in Gaza during that period, but Israeli strikes continued.
The diplomatic source’s statement came in response to a demand by Cabinet ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strook that Netanyahu prevent an international stabilization force from entering Gaza.
The ministers argued that the terms set out in the published roadmap were not those presented to the Cabinet before it approved the plan. Netanyahu has not yet responded publicly to their demand. Although they voted in favor of the process, Smotrich and Strock said the decision had been made “on the basis of false information.”
“The roadmap document published by the Board of Peace is dangerous for Israel and completely contradicts the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of Gaza,” they wrote. They demanded that the Security Cabinet convene immediately and vote on a decision blocking implementation of the roadmap.
Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strook
(Photo: Knesset channel)
According to the ministers, several central provisions were not presented to them before the vote. They said the roadmap does not require weapons to be removed from Gaza or destroyed; provides for an Israeli withdrawal alongside the demilitarization process; applies Palestinian Authority law in the territory; and assigns the stabilization force a separating role between the IDF and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza rather than direct action against terrorist groups.
They also said the document establishes an international mechanism whose composition was not presented to the Cabinet, does not condition Gaza’s reconstruction on the completion of demilitarization and once again openly presents the establishment of a Palestinian state as a diplomatic objective.
The ministers insisted that the plan published by the Board of Peace differed substantially from the outline shown to them during Cabinet deliberations. “The decisions were based on a presentation that does not correspond with the wording of the roadmap published over the weekend,” a statement issued on their behalf said.
“They therefore demand that the Cabinet be reconvened, that immediate decisions be made to prevent a dangerous security reality in the Gaza Strip and that the Board of Peace be required to amend the roadmap.
“Without immediate action, the framework could create a new security reality that contradicts the war’s objectives and the understandings on which Israel based its conduct with international actors.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid responded by challenging the ministers to identify who had allegedly misled them. “You claim in your letter that ‘false information was provided to the Cabinet’ regarding the redeployment in Gaza,” Lapid said. “Since this concerns a diplomatic matter agreed with the Americans, could you specify exactly who gave you false information in the Cabinet?
“Is there someone in the Cabinet more senior than you, who conducted the talks with the Americans and provided you with that false information? Cabinet ministers cannot make such a serious accusation without saying whom they mean.”