Israel has tightened restrictions on targeted strikes in Gaza, signaling that it intends to give U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiative to disarm Hamas a chance despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s firm public conditions for an Israeli withdrawal.
Senior Israeli security and political officials told Epoch Magazine Israel on Aug. 5 that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has ordered that every targeted strike in Gaza receive his personal approval.
Such operations previously required approval from the head of the IDF’s Southern Command. Under the new directive, Zamir must also obtain authorization from Israel’s political leadership before a strike can proceed.
The officials said the change followed a request from Nickolay Mladenov, the Gaza envoy for Trump’s Board of Peace, to suspend Israeli strikes for two weeks while negotiations over Hamas’s disarmament move forward.
They said Israel wants to avoid a confrontation with Trump and demonstrate that it remains fully coordinated with the Board of Peace and committed to the president’s 20-point Gaza plan.
The remarks, made a day after Netanyahu publicly outlined Israel’s objections to the U.S. proposal, highlighted Israel’s coordination with Washington and signaled that Jerusalem remained open to continued negotiations.
Netanyahu said in an Aug. 4 video message that Israel would not withdraw from its current positions in Gaza until Hamas had been completely disarmed.
“President Trump and his team believe they can bring about Hamas’s disarmament and the demilitarization of Gaza,” he said. “We are examining that.”
Netanyahu said Washington had sent Israel a draft proposal that his government had not accepted, adding that Israel had submitted its own comments.
“This is our position,” he said. “We stand firm in defending our interests, both wisely and resolutely.”
A senior Israeli official told Epoch Magazine Israel that despite the new restrictions on strikes, militants in Gaza would not have immunity. Anyone attempting to harm Israeli troops would be targeted.
Disarmament Talks
Trump announced on July 30 that the Board of Peace had reached what he called a historic agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.
Under the proposed phased arrangement, military operations would stop before heavy weapons, tunnels, and weapons-production sites were decommissioned. Israeli forces would then withdraw as disarmament progressed, while an International Stabilization Force and a newly trained Palestinian police force assumed responsibility for security.
Gaza would eventually be governed by a technocratic Palestinian administration working with the Board of Peace, according to U.S. officials.
Hamas and other Palestinian factions agreed on July 31 to a gradual process for cataloging and storing their weapons under the supervision of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, according to the Board of Peace.
A central dispute remains over the sequence. Israel says Hamas must disarm before Israeli forces pull back from the roughly 60 percent of Gaza they currently control. Hamas says Israel must first stop its strikes and begin withdrawing.
The Board of Peace held what it described as a “constructive and detailed” meeting with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in Jerusalem on Aug. 3.
“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 said. “Reaching it will be a process.”
The prospect of an agreement has generated cautious optimism among some Gaza residents exhausted by nearly three years of war and displacement.
“We feel a sense of joy when we hear the news, and we hope it turns out to be true,” said Fatima Mohammed, a displaced resident.
Evgenia Filimianova and Reuters contributed to this report.
