What were the main provisions of Trump's 15-point Board of Peace plan for Gaza, and why did Netanyahu reject it?

The core idea of the plan

The plan offered a simple trade: Hamas would give up its weapons, and in return Israel would pull troops out of Gaza in stages and Gaza would be rebuilt [13][90]. A new international body called the Board of Peace was created to watch over the whole process [2][168]. Trump's Board of Peace announced that a "historic agreement" had been reached for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza [45][88][202].

One quick note on the name: the roadmap that Netanyahu rejected in August is widely described in news reports as a 15-point plan [1][77][86][106], while the broader official plan is also recorded as the 20-point "Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict" [124][154][187][212].

Main provisions

• Ceasefire and withdrawal: the war would end immediately if both sides accepted the deal, Israeli forces would pull back to an agreed line, and all military operations would be suspended [30][140][213].
• Hostage release: all hostages, alive and deceased, would be returned within 72 hours of Israel accepting the agreement [31][141][214].
• Prisoner exchange: Israel would release 250 life-sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans detained after October 7, 2023 [32][142][215].
• Disarmament: Hamas and other factions would be completely disarmed, and the plan included amnesty for Hamas members who committed to peaceful coexistence and decommissioned their weapons, or safe passage out of Gaza for those who wanted to leave [33][143][216].
• Governance: Gaza would be run temporarily by a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, overseen by the Board of Peace chaired by President Trump, with Tony Blair among the members [34][35][144][145][218].
• Hamas excluded: Hamas would have no role in Gaza's governance, and military, terror, and offensive infrastructure including tunnels would be destroyed [37][146][220].
• Security force: an International Stabilization Force would deploy in Gaza, with later details setting it at 12,000 police and 20,000 ISF soldiers [38][221][66].
• Territory: Israel would not occupy or annex Gaza [39][149][160].
• Displacement: no one would be forced to leave Gaza, and those who left would be free to return [36][147][219].
• Rebuilding: the plan included reconstruction of services, schools, and hospitals, plus building 100,000 housing units in Rafah and a "New Gaza" [62][191].
• Funding: the US pledged $10 billion, with additional commitments of more than $7 billion from member states [66][76].
• Statehood: the plan offered a conditional pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, tied to Gaza's redevelopment and Palestinian Authority reform [40][161][223].

Why Netanyahu rejected it

The biggest reason was the order of events. The plan treated Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawal as steps in a phased process rather than requiring disarmament to happen completely first [90][117]. Netanyahu insisted on the opposite: Hamas had to disarm fully before any military withdrawal [8][13][96][117].

He also set a high bar for what "disarmed" meant. When he said Hamas must be disarmed, he meant heavy weapons, lighter weapons, all weaponry, and he demanded "genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament" [10][16][99][118]. The Israeli military, he said, would not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas was genuinely disarmed [5][15][80][116].

There were other objections too:

• He reaffirmed that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he is prime minister, which clashed with the plan's statehood pathway [17][120].
• His office had earlier said the public version of the plan did not reflect Israel's positions [12][101].
• The Israeli government objected to the Board of Peace announcement, saying it had not been coordinated with Israel and ran counter to Israeli policy, with officials warning it could limit Israel's freedom of action in Gaza [42][163][164][226].
• He rebuked US pressure to end wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran without Israel's buy-in [11][100].
• He faced domestic pressure: elections were months away, and far-right coalition members, including Itamar Ben Gvir, pushed for a harder line [25][83][104][209][210].
• Analysts saw the rejection as partly political, since Netanyahu wanted to show Israeli voters a victory by disarming Hamas before the election [23][104][122].

Meanwhile, Hamas had the mirror-image condition: it said it would hand over heavy weapons only after Israel ended "all forms of aggression" and withdrew its forces, and it tied later disarmament steps to a Palestinian state [6][18][82][109][119]. That left the two sides stuck on the same sequencing question that sank the deal.

One important twist: the rejection was not permanent. After earlier objecting to the Board of Peace, Israel later reversed course, and Netanyahu agreed to join the U.S.-led Board of Peace in January after receiving clarifications about its structure and mandate [43][65][165][185][227].