A new agreement in which Hamas has agreed to hand over its weapons in Gaza is being hailed by US President Donald Trump as a diplomatic breakthrough — but it has triggered an immediate political crisis for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who must now balance pressure from Washington against the demands of his far-right coalition partners and an Israeli electorate heading to the polls in October.
The terms of the disarmament framework, brokered with significant diplomatic involvement from Egypt and Turkey, stipulate not only that Hamas surrender its weaponry but that Israel withdraw from the roughly 70% of Gaza it currently occupies and gradually transfer governance to a Palestinian administration. Israel has not officially responded to the deal. However, a senior Israeli official said there would be no withdrawal before what Israel considers to be the "genuine disarmament" of Hamas — setting up an immediate standoff over sequencing. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the agreement "unacceptable", warning that halting targeted killings of Hamas figures would amount to preparing the ground for another massacre. Even centrist figures such as former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, widely seen as Netanyahu's leading rival in the coming election, declared any deal short of Hamas's full destruction a "total failure".
Netanyahu himself has remained conspicuously silent, a posture analysts describe as characteristically tactical. With corruption charges that could carry a prison sentence awaiting him if he loses power, and opinion polls showing the opposition ahead, the prime minister has powerful personal incentives to hold his coalition together. Analysts note that withdrawing from Gaza would be politically toxic for Netanyahu — one US-Israeli pollster described it as "electoral suicide" — yet openly defying Trump risks undermining his core campaign claim that he alone can manage the United States relationship. An unnamed US official has already warned that Trump would be "very, very disappointed" if Israel failed to honour the agreement.
Netanyahu's standing in Washington has visibly eroded in recent months. His latest visit to the White House — his eighth meeting with Trump this term — was notably low-key: he entered through a side entrance, there was no press question-and-answer session, and the White House released minimal information about the talks. Trump has simultaneously frustrated Israeli interests by agreeing to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, pursuing indirect negotiations with Iran, and raising the prospect of a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. Experts say Netanyahu, once adept at exploiting Trump's unpredictability, now finds himself buffeted by it.
The broader stakes extend well beyond Israeli domestic politics. Gaza's more than two million civilians are living in catastrophic conditions, with over 70,000 Palestinians killed during the war and widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure. Humanitarian organisations and regional governments have warned that powerful figures in the Israeli government are working toward the effective ethnic cleansing of Gaza's population. Meanwhile, the occupied West Bank is experiencing record levels of settler violence, and analysts warn that diplomatic failure would embolden hardliners on all sides. As BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen noted, Hamas has never previously agreed to disarm — making the current moment, however fragile, a rare opening. Whether it survives the weight of Israeli coalition politics, an approaching election, and deep mutual mistrust remains profoundly uncertain.