President Trump’s September 29, 2025 “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict" provided for the “demilitarization of Gaza “ with the DESTRUCTION of “All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities" and “placing weapons permanently beyond use".
But instead of the “demilitarization of Gaza “ , the “Roadmap" announced July 31, 2026 provides for a new Palestinian group in Gaza to KEEP ALL THE WEAPONS and weapon production facilities.
Don’t’ be fooled by the talk about “disarming Hamas". There is no such thing.
The goal was always demilitarizing Gaza.
And shifting the weapons from one Palestinian Arab group to another in the Gaza Strip is NOT demilitarizing Gaza.
I am frankly frustrated that the leaders, journalists and commentators discussing the Roadmap seem to have failed to spend the three minutes it takes to actually read the Roadmap and the original Plan.
Because if they did, I am confident that they would a lso be talking about the abandonment of the goal of demilitarizing Gaza.
Don’t have three minutes?
Then these two excerpts should suffice:
White House Press Release - President Donald J. Trump's Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict September 29, 2025
13. … All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors.
A Roadmap for Completing the Implementation of President Trump’s Comprehensive Peace Plan in Gaza Published July 31, 2026
Principles:
1. … Upon the completion of the timetable and implementation mechanisms, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) shall enter the Strip and start to assume its responsibilities. ….
8. A process to decommission and store heavy weapons, military production sites, depots of weapons, and tunnels… shall be administered and implemented by NCAG … no weapons shall be transferred or handed to Israel or non-Palestinian parties. At the end of the process mentioned in articles 7 - 10 of this Roadmap, only NCAG shall hold, store or cont rol weapons in Gaza. …
Do you see the crucial change in wording between September 29, 2025 and July 31, 2026?
The Gaza Roadmap betrays Trump’s Demilitarization Plan: Israel must reject it now
Someone appears to be telling President Trump that Israel’s acceptance of his September 2025 20-point plan obligates it to accept the July 2026 Roadmap.
It does not.
The Roadmap does not implement President Trump’s plan. It rewrites its core security provisions.
President Trump’s 20-point plan required the destruction of all military, terrorist and offensive infrastructure - including tunnels and weapons-production facilities - and that weapons be rendered permanently unusable under independent monitoring. In practice, that means destroying them or removing them from Gaza. That was the deal.
The July 2026 Roadmap says something fundamentally different.
Instead of destruction, heavy weapons, weapons-production facilities, depots and tunnels are to be “decommissioned and stored." At the end of the process, only the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) “shall hold, store or control weapons in Gaza." Nothing is transferred to Israel. The weapons and the means to produce them remain inside Gaza under a new Palestinian Arab authority.
That is not implementation of President Trump’s plan. It is a material rewrite of its central security provisions.
Responsibility for this dilution does not rest with President Trump. He is busy running the United States. The body established to implement his plan - the Board of Peace and its associated mechanisms - appears to have pursued an agreement with Hamas at almost any price. In doing so, it accepted terms that leave both the weapons and the means to manufacture them inside Gaza under Palestinian Arab institutional control.
If President Trump is fully briefed on how far the Roadmap departs from his original 20-point plan, there is every reason to believe he would support Israel’s rejection of these provisions.
The difference between destroying weapons-production facilities and storing them under NCAG is not a drafting detail. It is the difference between genuine demilitarization and managed rearmament under a different name.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has often handled difficult American initiatives by buying time, hoping that the initiative would ultimately self-destruct. Waiting until after the November midterm elections may seem tactically attractive. It would be a mistake.
The architects of the Roadmap are already working to create facts on the ground in Gaza, including preparations for the deployment of international forces and other measures that will be difficult to reverse. Once those arrangements are in place, replacing this diluted version with the original terms of President Trump’s plan will become far more difficult.
Israel should make its position clear - and now. It accepted President Trump’s September 2025 plan. It did not accept a later document that replaces destruction with storage and leaves the instruments of war inside Gaza.
A buyer confronted with a bait-and-switch does not accept the rewritten contract. Neither should Israel.
Dr. Aaron Lerner heads IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis, since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on Arab-Israeli relations.