US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jared Kushner has held rare talks with senior Hamas officials in Egypt over the implementation of Washington’s so-called ‘Gaza peace plan’, as Israel continues to resist key provisions requiring its military withdrawal from the besieged Palestinian territory.
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, reportedly met a Hamas delegation led by the movement’s new leader Khalil al-Hayya on Sunday, alongside Board of Peace envoys Nickolay Mladenov and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Representatives from Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye, which have played central roles in mediating negotiations between Hamas and Israel, were also reportedly involved.
The discussions are understood to have focused on the proposed disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza, humanitarian measures and the territory’s reconstruction.
The talks come after Trump’s Board of Peace announced last month that an agreement had been reached for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and other armed factions.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the wider 15-point Gaza framework, which also requires Israeli forces to withdraw and envisages Gaza being governed by a new Palestinian civilian administration.
“Israel rejects the Board of Peace’s 15-point document on Gaza. The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed,” Netanyahu said last week.
The Israeli rejection has placed Netanyahu’s regime in open defiance of the initiative promoted by its closest international ally.
Eight Muslim-majority countries — Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Türkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia — issued a joint statement on Sunday condemning Israel’s position and warning that it threatened efforts to secure a lasting peace.
Kushner also met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during his visit, while Israeli media reported that Kushner, Mladenov and Blair were expected to meet Netanyahu on Monday in an attempt to push the plan forward.
The Gaza ceasefire, which came into effect on 10 October last year, has been broken multiple times with Israel repeatedly carrying out deadly attacks across the enclave.
Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken captive.
Since then, Israeli occupation forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, whose casualty figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Around 1.9 million Palestinians — approximately 90% of Gaza’s population — have also been displaced during Israel’s military campaign, leaving much of the enclave destroyed and its civilian population facing a prolonged humanitarian catastrophe.
