WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was bullish on Monday evening shortly after leaving the White House, where he accepted US President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the war in Gaza.
“Now the whole world, including the Arab and Muslim world, is pressuring Hamas to accept the terms that we created together with Trump, to bring back all the hostages — the living and the dead — while the IDF stays in the majority of the Strip,” Netanyahu said in a video he posted to social media.
“Who would have believed it?!” Netanyahu exclaimed in Hebrew as he basked in the terms of Trump’s plan.
Netanyahu was naturally trying to frame the trip positively to his base back home amid headlines from earlier in the day focusing on his apology to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani for Israel’s strike targeting Hamas leaders in Doha.
But the premier did, in fact, have a lot to celebrate, as he managed to secure significant 11th-hour changes to the proposal regarding the scope and nature of the IDF’s withdrawal from Gaza, along with the disarmament of Hamas.
The two issues are arguably the most sensitive of the entire negotiations.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and US President Donald Trump hold a meeting in the White House, Washington, DC, September 29, 2025. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)
Hamas’s central demand from the beginning of the war has been for Israel to completely withdraw from Gaza in exchange for the hostages.
And while it has expressed willingness to give up governing control of Gaza, the surrender of its weapons has been a red line, as it recognizes that they are essential for the group to maintain a degree of influence in the Strip.
Benchmarks for withdrawal
The US sought to address both of these issues, but did so somewhat vaguely in the version of its Gaza peace proposal that it presented to Arab and Muslim partners last week.
Point 3 of what was then a 21-point plan obtained by The Times of Israel stated that “Israeli forces will withdraw to the battle lines as of when the [US special envoy Steve] Witkoff proposal was presented to prepare for hostage release.”
It didn’t specify which Witkoff proposal, even though there have been several. But the updated version published on Monday by the White House stated that “Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed-upon line.”
US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, right, and Jared Kushner arrive before President Donald Trump holds a news conference with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the State Dining Room of the White House, Sept. 29, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
This too wasn’t elaborated, but it appeared to refer to a new map that was included in the updated version that illustrated three phases of Israeli withdrawals from Gaza.
As Netanyahu mentions in his video, the map shows that Israeli troops will be able to remain in the majority of the Gaza Strip even after the first pullback of IDF troops in preparation for all of the hostages to be released.
They will then be able to remain in those positions until the International Stabilization Force (ISF) of Arab and Muslim countries is prepared to deploy and fully operate to disarm Hamas, the plan states.
Even after the second phase of the withdrawal, the IDF will remain in over a third of the Strip, the map indicates.
The third withdrawal will clear the final troops out of Gaza, but the map shows that a security buffer zone will be established along the perimeter of the entire Strip, another Israeli demand aimed at mitigating the threat of another October 7-like invasion.
Point 16 of the original US plan simply stated that the IDF “will progressively hand over the Gaza territory that [it] occup[ies].”
A map of a proposed withdrawal of IDF troops as part of a deal to end the war in Gaza, published on September 29, 2025. (White House)
But the updated version adds two lines that further qualify the nature of the withdrawal in Israel’s favor, stating that IDF “will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors, and the US.
“Practically, the IDF will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat,” the updated plan adds.
Disarmament terms
On the issue of disarmament, too, Netanyahu managed to secure noteworthy changes following a pair of hours-long meetings with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and top adviser Jared Kushner at his hotel in New York on Thursday and Sunday.
Whereas last week’s version grants amnesty to “Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence,” the plan published Monday adds that those members also have to “decommission their weapons.”
Point 13 of the plan originally stated, “There will be full commitment to destroy and stop building any offensive military.”
US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu depart at the conclusion of a joint press conference in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 29, 2025. (Jim WATSON / AFP)
But the updated version went into much greater detail on the issue, stating that “all military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt.”
“There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy-back and reintegration program, all verified by the independent monitors,” the Monday-publicized plan states.
Arab mediator less bullish than Netanyahu
A diplomat from one of the mediating countries reflected that while Arab and Muslim leaders got important face time with Trump last week during a multilateral meeting on the UN General Assembly sidelines, Netanyahu managed to secure “the last word,” convincing Washington to make additional changes to the plan at a point in the process when it was much harder for them to intervene.
Speaking to Trump last also allowed Netanyahu to secure something of a concession from the US president when the latter made a point of acknowledging the Israeli premier’s “understand[able] opposition to a Palestinian state” — somewhat deflating the proposal envisioning a pathway to a Palestinian statehood, even if that pathway was far from definitive.
Palestinians look through rubble following an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, September 26, 2025. (Fathi Ibrahim/FLASH90)
The Arab diplomat said it will be difficult to convince Hamas to accept the US proposal as is, given that it would force the terror group to give up all of its leverage by releasing all remaining hostages in the first 72 hours of the deal, while initially only securing a very partial withdrawal of Israeli troops.
The diplomat said it will likely take at least several days for Hamas to respond at which point it will likely have amendments of its own that it will try to submit like Netanyahu did, though, Witkoff in the past has demanded that Hamas accept his proposals as is.