Herzog urges Israel to ‘uphold all of the clauses’ of Trump’s Gaza peace plan

By Nava Freiberg

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3 November 2025, 5:01 pm

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Nava Freiberg is The Times of Israel's deputy diplomatic correspondent.

President Isaac Herzog speaks at a memorial ceremony to commemorate the 30th anniversary of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, at the President's Residence in Jerusalem on November 3, 2025. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)

Speaking at the state memorial ceremony marking 30 years since the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, President Isaac Herzog says Israel must uphold all the clauses of the US peace plan for Gaza.

Israel needs “at this moment to uphold all the clauses of the agreement initiated by [US] President [Donald] Trump and act by every means and tool to bring back all the slain hostages” from Gaza, says Herzog.

Currently, movement toward the next stages of the plan appears to have stalled as Hamas has yet to hand over the bodies of eight slain hostages still held in the Strip, and Israel is still controlling approximately 53% of Gazan territory, and striking imminent terror threats.

Herzog also encourages Israel to “expand the circle of peace” in Rabin’s name.

“Israel’s impressive achievements on so many fronts [have] changed the face of the Middle East, as has the strong and courageous alliance with the United States, with the American administration under President Trump, which is leading a determined and historic effort to expand the circle of peace and normalization in the region,” Herzog says.

“All of these open up before us tremendous opportunities. In many ways, this is the realization of Rabin’s vision,” Herzog says of the late premier, who led Israel’s peace efforts in the 1990s, signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians and the peace treaty with Jordan.

“Israel has always desired peace with all our neighbors,” Herzog continues, saying that “we must continue to do so.”

He adds that this “also depends on our neighbors, especially the Palestinians… on their willingness to internalize and recognize our national home here, in our ancestral land, and to understand that the path of terror will never defeat us.”

The president also urges domestic unity, saying that the upcoming election year is likely to be “a tense one — but it must not be a year of incitement or violence. Political disagreement is legitimate, turning a rival into an enemy is not.”