Trump says relationship is good even as Netanyahu rejects Gaza peace plan

United States President Donald Trump has briefly commented on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s outright rejection of the 15-point peace plan for Gaza drafted by the US-led Board of Peace.

Trump insisted on Monday that his relationship with Netanyahu is “very good” despite Netanyahu’s dismissal.

“The relationship is very good,” Trump said in response to a shouted question from a journalist at the end of an Oval Office event at the White House in Washington.

After more than a week of gradually escalating criticism, Netanyahu explicitly stated on Sunday that he opposed the Gaza plan, which called for Israel to begin pulling back forces in tandem with disarmament by Hamas.

Polls show that the Gaza plan is unpopular with Netanyahu’s right-wing base, and far-right members of his cabinet had urged him to kill it.

Trump late last month announced a breakthrough in the US-led ceasefire framework, saying that Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza had accepted a phased plan under which they would surrender their weapons to a new Palestinian governing body, and Israel would begin pulling out troops in tandem with disarmament to end the Israel-Palestine conflict that began in October 2023.

When the blueprint was first released by the Board of Peace on July 31, Netanyahu kept quiet for days, only later acknowledging that the Trump administration had “sent us a draft”, and that he did not agree with it. But Sunday was the first time that the Israeli prime minister formally asserted his refusal to endorse it.

The Israeli army “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed … and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens”, Netanyahu said on Sunday, adding that Israel is “talking to the Americans about this issue”, further vowing that “no Palestinian state will arise as long as I am prime minister”.

Netanyahu’s comments signal a growing public policy rift between the US and Israel over Tel Aviv’s hard-power strategy. Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said that Netanyahu is playing a “very dangerous game” with Trump. Israel is growing increasingly unpopular in the US, with the Democratic Party “very much sliding towards the Palestinian cause”, said Culhane.

On Monday, a Board of Peace official said the Gaza plan is still operative.

“The process is based on implementation and verification on the ground,” the official told Reuters. “Discussions with Israel are continuing, and the framework is designed so that each stage only moves forward once the required commitments have been met. The roadmap is between the Board of Peace and Hamas and discussions with Israel are continuing. Israel is not being asked to rely on trust or to make irreversible moves before verified steps are taken on the ground.”

Al Jazeera reached out to the White House and US Department of State for comment on Netanyahu’s remarks, but has received no response at the time of this writing.