Kushner met directly with Hamas officials in Egypt over the weekend
President Donald Trump said publicly Monday that Israel should not be striking targets in Gaza, as his envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to salvage a 15-point U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hamas that Netanyahu has rejected.
In remarks to Fox News, relayed by Fox chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst, Trump told the network that Israel should halt attacks on Hamas targets because the group has agreed to lay down its weapons. “Ultimately, they are giving up their guns,” Trump said, according to Yingst. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Last week, Netanyahu rejected the 15-point plan for phased disarmament of Hamas and, after a brief pause in early August, resumed near-daily strikes in Gaza against Palestinian militants, including some Israel says took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and hostage-taking.
Trump announced in late July that Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, had agreed to the 15-point road map that would ultimately lead Hamas to surrender its weapons to Palestinian authorities in exchange for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Strip. The two sides disagree on which side must go first; Israel has refused to pull back until Hamas disarms.
Kushner’s visit, as one of Trump’s closest advisers, signaled the president’s growing frustration over the stagnating plan, which his administration has touted as a diplomatic success while it struggles to wind down its war with Iran. Before arriving in Israel, Kushner met Sunday with Hamas officials for direct talks in the Egyptian city of El Alamein, according to people familiar with the talks. Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya was present for some of those meetings.
Kushner pressed Hamas to take the first concrete steps toward transferring authority to a new civilian body and decommissioning its weapons, the people familiar said, while assuring the group that Israel would follow suit.
The peace plan began with a cease-fire last October that halted the heaviest fighting and successfully swapped the remaining hostages held in Gaza for nearly 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Progress then stalled as Hamas refused to disarm and Israel continued to strike in the enclave, leaving roughly 2 million Gazans in limbo. Most have been displaced and are living in squalid tent camps or bombed-out buildings, reliant on humanitarian aid. The latest plan was designed to jump-start the disarmament process so power could be transferred to a civilian governing body and reconstruction could begin.
Netanyahu and many across the Israeli political spectrum are resolved that Hamas must be destroyed as a fighting and governing force before the war can end. The pressure is heightened by elections looming in October, where polls show Netanyahu’s party is losing support.
Israel briefly paused attacks in Gaza in early August after talks between Israeli officials and Nickolay Mladenov, the chief Gaza envoy for the Board of Peace. But the attacks have since picked up the pace.
Mladenov and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, also a top Board of Peace official, joined the delegation led by Kushner, one of the people familiar with the talks said.
MSI previously reported that Netanyahu rejected the 15-point U.S.-backed disarmament plan on August 9 and that Trump had announced in late July that Hamas had agreed to disarm under the framework while both sides immediately disputed the deal’s scope, setting up this week’s escalating public pressure from the White House.