Jerusalem
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended skeptics’ 20-point Gaza Peace Plan on Tuesday evening, saying that coordination with the minister was “close than you think.”
“There is a huge opportunity here,” Netanyahu is said to have told the Cabinet.
Netanyahu said this week that Israel supported the plan in Washington, but the Israeli Cabinet has not officially voted to accept the proposal and has not yet scheduled the vote.
The Israeli leader arrived at the cabinet meeting shortly after returning from the US amid severe criticism from his right-wing political partners of the plan Trump announced at the White House on Monday.
Sources told CNN that Netanyahu had not had extensive discussions about the plan during the meeting, but he addressed two main issues from the perspective of a coalition of hardliners: the possibility of recognizing the future Palestinian state, Hamas’ disarming and Gaza’s unvigilance.
Netanyahu told the minister that the language regarding the Palestinian state was “ambiguous,” the source said.
“The Palestinian Authorities (PA) are out,” he said. “Even the ‘Peace Commission’ will not be appointed representatives of the PA. Israel and the United States are the people who decide whether it meets the criteria and there is an entire barrier of conditions. ”
The so-called Peace Commission is described in Trump’s proposal as an “international transition agency” led by the US president, overseeing the implementation of the plan.
Netanyahu said the board also said Hamas disarmament and Gaza unarmed “a process that was done with us and if they didn’t do it, they would do it.”
“It’s agreed between Trump and me. It’s tougher than you think. This will end peacefully, by force, or both,” the source said.
The 20-point proposal released by the White House does not provide details of the process or agency that ensures Hamas will abolish weapons. The “Independent Monitor” says it will oversee the decommissioning of Hamas weapons.
According to another Israeli official, far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gwil told Netanyahu the agreement was “full of holes, failing to achieve the purpose of the war and harming Israel’s security.” Ben Gwil challenged the planned withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the involvement of international forces, and the “possibility of a Palestinian state.”
“I understand that you are under pressure, but you shouldn’t have gotten such a hole-covered agreement,” the source said, adding that Ben Gwyr’s statement contradicts Netanyahu’s claims at the White House.
Financial Minister Bezarel Smotrich, another far-right coalition partner in Netanyahu, requested limited discussions on the plan, as he did not want to discuss the transaction before “understanding the small details.” Smotrich wrote in X on Tuesday that the plan was “a overwhelming diplomatic failure for Israel, ending in tears,” and condemned it as “a tragedy of leadership that escapes the truth.”
Meanwhile, Qatar, Egyptian and Turkish officials met with Hamas negotiators on Tuesday night to discuss how they responded to the Trump administration’s proposal to end the war in Gaza, officials familiar with the talks said.
Hamas told mediators it would “review” the proposal and prepare a final response once consultations with other Palestinian facts are completed, officials said.
In the enclave, the Red Cross halted operations in Gaza on Wednesday as Israel threatened to cut off northern Gaza and split the besieged territory into two.
In a statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that it is Gaza’s largest city, and the most populous one before the escape of hundreds of thousands of people faced an exacerbating humanitarian crisis as “civilians are killed, forced to evacuate and endured dire circumstances.”
ICRC said the suspension was temporary and the team stayed as much as possible “to protect and support the most vulnerable.”
At least 51 Palestinians have been killed throughout Gaza in northern Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to data from the Palestinian Health Hospital on Wednesday.
Trump told reporters Tuesday that Hamas was giving “three to four days” to respond to the Gaza Peace Project.
“We’re going to do it for about three or four days. We’ll see how it will be. All of the Arab countries are signed up. All of the Muslim countries are signed up. All of the Israelites are signed up,” the president said when he left the White House.
