The US-backed Board of Peace appeared to change its conditions for the IDF to withdraw from Gaza after its top officials held a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, shortly before a fresh Israeli airstrike was reported in the enclave.

“Contrary to inaccurate reports, we note that the withdrawal of the IDF beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators. This applies to light weapons, heavy weapons and the tunnels alike,” the Board of Peace, meant to oversee postwar Gaza, said in a statement confirming a Jerusalem meeting between its high representative Nickolay Mladenov, its senior adviser Aryeh Lightstone and Netanyahu.

The Yellow Line is the border demarcated in the October 2025 ceasefire, which roughly split Gaza between zones of Israeli and Hamas control. Since then, the IDF has taken more territory and now controls more than 60% of Gaza.

Israel was expected to initially pull back to the Yellow Line under the terms of a deal to disarm Hamas that was announced last week, a Board of Peace official told The Times of Israel last week, though Monday’s statement does not specify that.

An earlier version of the Board of Peace statement spoke of the “full withdrawal of the IDF.” That suggested that some IDF pullbacks beyond the Yellow Line could take place before the entire disarmament process is complete — as was specified in the Board of Peace’s proposal last week.

But “full” was removed from the Monday Board of Peace statement minutes after it was published.

Regardless, both versions appeared to contradict what Mladenov said last week, when he asserted that “Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning.”

The apparent shift appeared to be part of the Board of Peace’s efforts to get Israel on board with its disarmament plan, after officials in Jerusalem insisted that no IDF withdrawals would take place until after the full disarmament of Hamas was complete, taking issue with the plan’s envisioning of a phased disarmament and withdrawal process.

But the apparent change to the disarmament terms risks losing Hamas, which only agreed to the original sequencing.

In its Monday statement on the “constructive” meeting with Netanyahu, the Board of Peace wrote, “The goal is clear and is not in question: the complete decommissioning of weapons in the Strip and the transition away from rule by the gun to civilian governance. Reaching it will be a process. And that process will be set out in the next phase of the work.”

As Israeli officials continue to reject any halt to military operations in Gaza, the Board statement stressed that “continued progress towards implementation in full depends on each side fulfilling its obligations under the agreed framework.”

‘The start of the hard phase’

According to the Israel Hayom outlet, Netanyahu told Mladenov during the meeting that Israel will not hold its fire in Gaza, and will not withdraw from the Yellow Line, due to the ongoing threat posed by Hamas.

The report added that Israel also handed the Board and US officials a list of reservations regarding the disarmament plan, protesting the fact that Jerusalem was not a party to the deal as it was being negotiated in Cairo, and did not get the opportunity to present its opinion.

Long day in Jerusalem, sitting down with Prime Minister Netanyahu and his team. This is the start of the hard phase and I have never pretended otherwise. Not much of what we do now is dramatic. It is slow, grinding and technical work. https://t.co/KQIVRkzBTE Advertisement if(typeof rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner != "function" || !rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner("#Article_Incontent2")){ window.tude = window.tude || { cmd: [] }; tude.cmd.push(function() { if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("rgbmedia-app") > -1){ tude.setDeviceType("mobile"); } tude.refreshAdsViaDivMappings([ { divId: 'Article_Incontent2', baseDivId: 'Article_Incontent2',........

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