Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on Monday with US envoy Jared Kushner that a US general should supervise Hamas’s disarmament, a day after Donald Trump’s son-in-law met the Palestinian militant group’s representative.
Netanyahu told Kushner that Israel would not pull troops from Gaza until then till the disarmament is complete, according to an official quoted in an AFP report. The two sides “agreed that the first step toward the demilitarisation of the Strip would be to require Hamas to hand over its weapons for decommissioning under the supervision of an American general,” the Israeli official quoted in the report said.
But Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking to get re-elected as Israeli PM in an election due in October, has publicly rejected Trump’s plan. Earlier reporting noted: Kushner demanded that the group verify it is giving up its weapons, a key sticking point for Netanyahu, and that Hamas — whose unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack against Israel launched the Gaza war — renounce any future role in governing the Palestinian territory, the sources said.
Trump said in late July that a deal was reached for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. A diplomatic source quoted by Reuters said Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya was present at some of the meetings that mediators held with Kushner and Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, in Cairo. Trump had said the deal reached in late July would be carried out in phases, with Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza as disarmament proceeded and an International Stabilisation Force working with a new Palestinian police force to secure the enclave. Hamas has said it agreed to the plan, but the deal’s implementation would depend on Israel first meeting its own commitments, including withdrawal and halting attacks.
Jared Kushner held a rare meeting with Hamas officials in Cairo on Sunday, in a bid to push forward the US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Earlier reporting noted: President Donald Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday after holding talks with Hamas leaders, as he tries to revive a Gaza peace plan that Israel has so far rejected. Earlier reporting noted: Kushner — Trump’s son-in-law — met Hamas’s new leader Khalil al-Hayya in the Egyptian Mediterranean city of El-Alamein on Sunday, sources with knowledge of the discussions told AFP, the latest of once-unthinkable talks between the United States and a group it classifies as terrorists.
