Soon after President Trump announced a new plan last week to deliver peace and security in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave instead experienced a spike in deadly Israeli bombings, which threatened to undermine hopes for long-awaited progress.
On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed 18 people, according to the health ministry in Gaza, making it one of the deadliest days there since a troubled cease-fire came into force in October. Gaza health ministry data from the conflict does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israeli strikes a day earlier killed at least two people and damaged warehouses for medical supplies, Palestinian officials said. And on Monday, the Israeli military struck a car on a beachside road, killing two, according to Gazan officials. No new Israeli strikes have been reported in Gaza since Monday evening.
With many of the plan’s details still unclear, including a timetable for the Hamas disarmament at its heart, the 15-point plan released by Mr. Trump’s Board of Peace — which also calls for an Israeli withdrawal and a new administration in Gaza — risks being undone before the specifics are worked out.
On Monday, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office, Doron Spielman, pushed back against the terms of the agreement, which Israel had not signed. “The version that has been made public does not reflect Israel’s positions,” he said in a statement. He added, “Israel has conveyed its comments and concerns on the proposed framework to our American counterparts.” He said the concerns centered on the issue of Hamas disarmament.
Nickolay E. Mladenov, a veteran Bulgarian diplomat who is the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, leveled rare criticism at Israel over its attacks.
“Two days of strikes across Gaza have killed civilians and destroyed medical supplies that people depend on,” he said in a statement posted on social media on Sunday. He said that the attacks came after “intense efforts” by the mediators to reach a deal and that he and his team were “working around the clock with the parties, mediators and regional partners to de-escalate.”
In a joint statement on Monday, three countries that have served as mediators — Qatar, Egypt and Turkey — condemned what they described as “the ongoing Israeli violations” in Gaza.
Hamas said in a statement that “entire families” were wiped out on Sunday, and it accused Israel of “a deliberate escalation” aimed at blocking the plan.
The Israeli military has said that its strikes in recent days have targeted Hamas fighters and weapons infrastructure. It also said it had taken steps to mitigate harm to civilians.
Since the October cease-fire, Israel has steadily stepped up attacks across the Gaza Strip. In July, the military carried out almost daily strikes and named at least 50 militants it said it had eliminated, including what it said were Hamas members who had participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel that killed about 1,200 people. That attack ignited the war in Gaza, which has left more than 70,000 dead, according to officials, and much of the enclave in ruins.
On Tuesday, a mass funeral was held in Gaza City for 112 people whose bodies had been pulled from the rubble in recent weeks, according to Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run interior ministry.
Michael Milshtein, an Israeli analyst and a former Israeli military intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs, said it was “no coincidence” that Israel had recently increased its pace of attacks.
Israel was either showing it did not care about the agreement, he said, “or there was a fear that the point may come where the United States tells Israel to stop” and the military was striking while it still could.
On Sunday night, Mohammed Dahlan, an influential Palestinian exile and a confidant of the president of the United Arab Emirates, wrote on social media that Jared Kushner, a son-in-law and an aide to Mr. Trump, had provided assurances that he reached an agreement with Israel that it would cease its strikes. But shortly thereafter, he edited the post, deleting the reference to an agreement, and said Mr. Kushner had conveyed he was “working with the Israeli side to stop the attacks on Gaza.”
Negotiators on the Board of Peace described the new agreement with Hamas, announced by Mr. Trump last week, as a “road map” intended to cement the fragile cease-fire, disarm Hamas, secure a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and enable a return to normalcy for the population and the start of reconstruction.
But key questions immediately arose over whether Hamas and Israel would carry out the agreement. According to the text, the parties were given two weeks to determine a schedule, which an international verification committee could extend.
Stark differences have already emerged over sequencing, among other issues. The agreement with Hamas stipulates that Israel must initially fulfill its obligations under the October cease-fire deal, which called for an immediate suspension of Israeli attacks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had pledged total victory over Hamas, along with its dismantlement. He said on social media on Tuesday that Israel would not pull back from its current positions in Gaza before Hamas had completely disarmed.
Hamas, for its part, has long touted armed struggle against Israel as the core of its ideology. The group’s weapons have so far helped it keep power in Gaza, though Hamas has said it is willing to hand over the administration of the territory to a committee of Palestinian technocrats working under the Board of Peace’s supervision.
Palestinian analysts said Israel’s continued airstrikes in Gaza strengthened Hamas officials’ argument that Israel will press its military campaign even if the group agrees to disarm.
“They’re saying: ‘Look, I told you so,’” said Akram Atallah, a Palestinian columnist who is originally from Gaza and lives in London. “They feel like Israel is proving them right.”
Hamas now says it agreed to relinquish its “heavy weapons,” in part on condition that Israel commits to halting attacks and withdrawing. The group has found itself with few regional allies, and most of its senior leaders in Gaza have been killed.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu said, “We’re not withdrawing from our current lines until Hamas is totally disarmed.”
Mr. Spielman, the Israeli government spokesman, said that over the past eight months, according to Israeli intelligence, “Hamas has used the cease-fire to rearm, recruit thousands of additional terrorists, rebuild its military infrastructure and prepare for further October 7-style massacres.”
The 15-point plan has left elements of disarmament vague. It calls for a “gradual, sequential and timebound manner” for decommissioning and storing heavy weapons, with the timetable yet to be determined.
The agreement, however, adds that, at the “end of the process,” only the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the group of Palestinian technocrats hoping to take over governing under the Board of Peace’s administration, will “hold, control or store weapons in Gaza.” No weapons will be handed to Israel or non-Palestinian parties.
The Board of Peace has tried to downplay the differences. After Mr. Mladenov and other board members met on Monday with Mr. Netanyahu, the board said in a post on social media that it and Israel “share a common understanding of the ultimate objectives.”
“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,” the board’s statement said. It added, “Reaching it will be a process.”
In Gaza, residents expressed doubts that Israel and Hamas would carry out the agreement, stoking fears the population could be left in limbo indefinitely.
“We’re worried nothing will change,” said Saed Abu Aita, 46, who is from Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. His two daughters were killed in an Israeli strike early in the war, he said, and he and his surviving family remain displaced in a tent in central Gaza.
For the past two years, Mr. Abu Aita said, he has been trying to gain permission to leave Gaza and reunite with his brother in France. The latest agreement has done little to make him want to stay put.
“We’re not reassured about the situation at all,” he said.
Heedo Abu Laban, Iyad Abuheweila and Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.
