NYT: Israel keeps working with Board of Peace despite pushback on Gaza plan

Israeli authorities continue to work with the Board of Peace on the Gaza Strip despite their opposition to its 15-point plan, The New York Times (NYT) reports.

A Board of Peace official told the newspaper that despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements, Israeli representatives are cooperating with the organisation on the ground in the Gaza Strip, including on efforts to reduce the intensity of strikes on the enclave.

Netanyahu previously said that Israel rejects the Board of Peace’s 15-point plan for the Gaza Strip and will not withdraw its forces from the Palestinian enclave until the Hamas movement is genuinely disarmed.

The US-backed proposal calls for a phased process under which Hamas would surrender its weapons in stages to a new Palestinian administration in Gaza. In return, Israel would gradually withdraw from more than half of the Gaza Strip that it has controlled since the cease-fire last October.

The move appeared to mark an unusually public rift with President Donald Trump, whose relationship with Netanyahu has followed a dizzying and often unpredictable trajectory. The two leaders launched the war against Iran together in late February, but have since clashed over how to bring the conflict to an end, as well as over the future of Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.

By Jeyhun Aghazada