Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Tuesday that Jerusalem “won’t compromise” on the full disarmament of Hamas under U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Gaza Strip.
“The eradication of the Hamas terror state is at the heart of President Trump’s plan,” Sa’ar said ahead of meetings in New Delhi, speaking alongside his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
“Hamas must be disarmed. Gaza must be demilitarized,” Jerusalem’s top diplomat declared, adding that the “radical terror states” in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen must be uprooted to ensure regional security.
Sa’ar thanked New Delhi for its “strong solidarity” with the Jewish state, noting that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first world leaders to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacre.
“India is a global superpower. And Israel is a regional powerhouse. Our nations already share a warm friendship. Our goal is to build a long-term strategic partnership between Israel and India,” stated Sa’ar. “Radical terror is a mutual threat to Israel and India,” he added.
Jaishankar said that Israel and India “face a particular challenge” from terror. “It is essential that we work towards ensuring a global approach of zero tolerance towards terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” he added.
“We have naturally been following developments in your region with very close attention,” New Delhi’s top diplomat continued, welcoming the return of the living hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, as well as “the remains of those who unfortunately lost their lives” in the massacre.
The Modi government supports Trump’s peace plan and “hopes that it paves the way for a durable and lasting solution,” said Jaishankar.
Last month, Jordanian King Abdullah II told the BBC that if the mandate of the International Stabilization Force envisioned in the U.S peace plan was enforcing Hamas’s disarmament, “nobody will want to touch that.”
“If we’re running around Gaza on patrol with weapons, that’s not a situation that any country would like to get involved in,” he stated.
A New York Times report also cited “diplomats and other officials from several countries who are familiar with the situation” two weeks ago as saying that the countries seen as likely participants are insisting that their soldiers should not be expected to fight with Hamas terrorists.
A U.S.-led draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council that leaked on Monday night states that the ISF would work to demilitarize the Strip, including through “the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”
The draft will form the basis for negotiations between Security Council members, a U.S. official told Axios late on Monday, as the White House seeks to deploy the International Stabilization Force as early as January.
The ISF would also be tasked with securing Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, protecting Palestinian civilians and humanitarian corridors, and training the new Palestinian police forces that will provide security.
