Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner held talks with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday, a day after meeting Hamas’s leader, as the Trump administration attempts to push forward its peace plan for Gaza.
Kushner’s meeting with Netanyahu comes just over a week after the Israeli leader publicly rejected a US-backed plan for the Gaza Strip. The 15-point plan proposed that Hamas would disarm in exchange for a phased Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave.
Kushner, an adviser to Trump and one of the architects of the US president’s plan to end the war in Gaza, on Sunday met Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s leader, during talks with mediators in Egypt, according to three people briefed on the meeting.
Hamas said in a statement that Hayya “met with delegations representing the mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza” in Egypt.
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The US designates Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but Trump officials have previously met members of the militant group to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza and push for a diplomatic settlement to end the war that was triggered by Hamas’s October 7th, 2023 attack on Israel.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu and Kushner had agreed there would be no reconstruction in Gaza until Hamas had completely disarmed, and the first step towards disarmament would be for Hamas to hand over its weapons to an international stabilisation force for destruction.
The official also insisted that Israel would continue to carry out assassinations in Gaza, despite pressure from the US to halt them.
However, the official acknowledged gaps between the US and Israel, in particular over whether there was any prospect of Hamas disarming – with Israel sceptical and the Americans believing it was possible.
Trump had last month welcomed the 15-point plan, intended to lead to the “complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza”, as a major breakthrough. Under the proposal, Israeli forces would withdraw from the Palestinian enclave “as disarmament is completed”.
But the plan drew widespread criticism from members of Netanyahu’s far-right government. The Israeli prime minister – whose coalition is trailing opposition parties in polls ahead of elections due to be held in October – said this month that Israel “does not accept the 15-point document”.
He insisted that the Israeli military – which controls about 60 per cent of Gaza – would not withdraw from the strip at all “until Hamas is disarmed”.
Hamas officials, meanwhile, said any progress on the new plan was contingent on Israel first fulfilling its prior obligations, including increasing humanitarian aid flows into the shattered Palestinian territory and withdrawing to the positions it held when a truce took effect last year.
In its statement late on Sunday, Hamas commended Trump’s role in securing a ceasefire deal last October, while calling upon the mediators “to fulfil their responsibilities and compel the occupation to implement all its obligations”.
The US has struggled to make progress on its diplomatic push to end the war since brokering the October ceasefire, after which Trump announced he was forming a Board of Peace to oversee the implementation of a plan.
It called for Hamas disarmament, the phased withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the deployment of an international stabilisation force in the strip and the establishment of a Palestinian technocratic committee to manage day-to-day administration.
But the process has been deadlocked, with no movement on Hamas’s disarmament, few states willing to provide troops for the international force, and the Palestinian technocratic committee stuck in Egypt and unable to move to Gaza.
Israel has expanded its hold over Gaza and continues to launch strikes in the strip. Aid groups have complained about continued Israeli restrictions on the delivery of desperately needed aid into the strip, which is home to 2 million people.
Palestinian health authorities say Israeli strikes since the October truce have killed more than 1,200 people in Gaza, much of which has been reduced to rubble by Israel’s offensive.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu’s far-right national security minister, said in a recent interview that Israel should be killing “30 to 40” people each night in Gaza and should build Jewish settlements in the Palestinian enclave.
Ben-Gvir made the comments on a podcast hosted by Rom Braslavski, who was taken hostage during Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
