TEL AVIV—President Trump said Israel shouldn’t be striking targets in Gaza, as his envoy Jared Kushner met Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to salvage the president’s floundering plan to disarm Hamas and end the war .
The visit by Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and one of his 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 . Mladenov and former U.K. Trump announced in late July that Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, had agreed to a 15-point road map that would ultimately lead to Hamas surrendering its weapons to Palestinian authorities in exchange for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.
Because he said Hamas has agreed to lay down its weapons, trump told Fox News on Monday that Israel shouldn’t be carrying out those attacks,.
“Ultimately, they are giving up their guns,” Trump said, according to Fox chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst. Kushner met Sunday with Hamas officials for direct talks in the Egyptian city of El Alamein, people familiar with the talks said. Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya was present for some of the meetings, the people said. Kushner pressed Hamas to take the first concrete steps toward transferring authority to a new civilian body and decommissioning its weapons to push forward the plan, the people said. He assured the group Israel would follow suit, they said. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is also a top Board of Peace official, joined the delegation led by Kushner, one of the people familiar with the talks said.
