Israel has secretly informed Washington it will never agree to any future ceasefire, roadmap or disarmament deal that includes Hamas' gunmen who massacred 1,200 people last morning in a single day in the Gaza Strip. The news outlet on Monday reported that an Israeli spokesperson told the White House that the Jewish capital was considering the possibility of suspending its "campaign of targeted killings" against militants in the Gaza Strip, but it explicitly stated it would not extend mercy to anyone involved in the October 7 massacre. It's a slender yet significant exception, coming at exactly the right time when the more comprehensive peace process surrounding President Donald Trump's Board of Peace is stalling.

“It's no coincidence,” I said. The revelation occurred a day after this outlet reported that the Israeli military had quietly halted a manhunt to kill all those involved in the October 7 massacre, and within 24 hours of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appearing before his cabinet and adamantly rejecting the 15-point roadmap proposed by Trump's board for disarming Hamas. The message in Netanyahu's language was hard to miss: Israeli troops were not going to pull back a single inch until Hamas handed over all weapons, from rifles to rockets, and he insisted it was no symbolic gesture, but a genuine one. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich went further, tying the reconstruction funding to that same precondition and saying that the American roadmap is fundamentally incompatible with the goals Israel fought to achieve.

But scarcely had Netanyahu completed his speech when an official of the Board of Peace responded by telling Reuters that the plan was still very alive, and that negotiations with Israel were continuing in a “phased” manner based on verifications. This is the abyss between public rejection and private continuity becoming the defining element of this stage of the Gaza file. The rules of engagement are, however, changing dramatically over the last decade, soldiers stationed along the “Yellow Line” told Channel 12 this week, with the approval of a strike now in the hands of the IDF chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, instead of the regional commander a bureaucratic shift that some soldiers interpreted as a tacit acceptance of the board's demands, albeit in private. One soldier, asked to speak anonymously, said the change of direction had resulted in units being told not to engage in friction "almost at all. The IDF Spokesperson's Office has refuted any formal shift in policy, but the reports of several soldiers indicate that there has been a shift even though the army has yet to officially announce it.

Trump, in his turn, promised reporters in the Oval Office that he'd provide a “response” on Truth Social soon by Tuesday morning, and has made a thing of teeing off announcements in his second term in office that never came to fruition. Even as Israeli officials privately acknowledge that some parts of the American plan are simply impractical from Israel's perspective, he is adamant that his relationship with Netanyahu remains strong.

The money that comes with this standoff is what's making this more than just a diplomatic spat. The World Bank and the European Union and the United Nations jointly estimated in April that it will cost $71.4 billion to rebuild Gaza in the next ten years seven times more than the cost of all previous reconstruction efforts following the 2008, 2014 and 2021 conflicts. About $26.3 billion of that is required in the first 18 months, just to restore essential services and critical infrastructure. All that spending must start with the security question, who will control Gaza and whether or not Hamas has any ability to rearm, still unresolved. Donor governments have indicated they don't want to put money into a rebuilding effort that Hamas can take over or sabotage again.

The Israeli side has also suffered the financial burden of almost three years of constant warfare in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. The country's military expenses since October 2023 are in excess of 250 billion shekels ($76 billion), and will exceed 184 billion shekels ($61 billion) when emergency funds are added to the government's total for 2026. That amounts to almost twice the amount of Israel's defence budget prior to the war and has led to multiple conflicts between the treasury and the defence ministry over the amount of the state budget that can be allocated to the military without compromising education, health and infrastructure. Continued deadlock on disarmament has left Palestinian and aid agency estimates of troops deployed at 70 percent of Gaza's territory, resulting in sustained spending at that level.

The regional context also exacerbates the situation. Iranian officials have cited the trilateral defense pact signed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in Mecca as proof that Washington's traditional allies no longer consider the United States to be a reliable security guarantor, just days before Netanyahu's rejection. Regardless of whether the reading is accurate, it shows how much the regional capitals are monitoring whether Trump can actually make good on the peace plan he promised with much fanfare last month. It is currently uncertain where this will end up in the end. In principle, Hamas has adhered to the roadmap it has agreed to, it says. Israel says it will discuss all issues except amnesty for perpetrators on Oct. 7. And the both the reconstruction billions and the diplomatic capital riding on this plan sit in limbo until someone blinks.