US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner left Jerusalem on Monday without a breakthrough after two days of talks with Israeli and Hamas leaders over a stalled American plan to end the war in Gaza, with both sides holding firm on their central demands.
Kushner met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day after meeting Hamas political leader Khalil Al-Hayya in Egypt. Israel has carried out air strikes and seized further territory in Gaza despite an October ceasefire, while Hamas has refused to surrender its weapons.
Kushner described the nearly four-hour meeting with Netanyahu as “good” and said Hamas representatives had said “all the right things.”
“We could be seeing progress, you know in as little as 30 days, hopefully on starting to take some of the weapons out and hopefully, you know, filling in some of the tunnels as well in the next 60 to 90 days as well,” he told Fox News.
Sequencing remains the sticking point
Trump announced last month that Hamas had agreed to lay down its arms in phases under a 15-point roadmap put forward by his Board of Peace, as Israel’s military withdraws. Hamas says it accepted the roadmap but that implementation depends on Israel first halting attacks and withdrawing.
Netanyahu rejected the deal this month, insisting Israel would not pull back until Hamas is completely disarmed. An Israeli official said the prime minister told Kushner troops would not withdraw and the military would continue operating as it sees necessary. A Board of Peace official set the disarmament standard as “every weapon, light and heavy, and every tunnel.”
Both men agreed reconstruction would not begin until Hamas is disarmed. “Nobody wants to put more money into a place that’s gone on for so long if it’s just going to be taken over by terrorists or blown up again,” Kushner said.
The two sides agreed to establish working groups on disarmament and on sanitation, clean water and public health.
More than 1,200 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since last October, according to Gazan health officials and the Israeli military. Netanyahu faces a national election on October 27, and diplomats say concessions before the vote are unlikely.
