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Kushner meets Hamas in Egypt
Jared Kushner, the US negotiator and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, met Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt on Sunday to revive a stalled Gaza ceasefire, with officials from mediator countries Egypt, Qatar and Turkey also present.
“US negotiator Jared Kushner met Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt to revive the stalled Gaza ceasefire”
The talks came as Kushner was set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday after Netanyahu rejected a new 15-point, US-backed road map for Gaza.
A regional official and a Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the meeting with al-Hayya in Egypt lasted for more than two hours, and Kushner was one of three envoys in the meeting.
The effort was aimed at rescuing a plan under which Hamas would disarm and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza, with at stake the lives of around two million people in the territory and its reconstruction after more than 10 months under Israeli military control.
The dispute over disarmament and withdrawal remained unresolved, with Netanyahu saying Israel will not leave any position in Gaza until Hamas is fully disarmed and Hamas linking its heaviest weapons to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Compel Israel, Netanyahu defies
Hamas urged mediators and the Board of Peace to “compel” Israel to implement the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, while also calling for Israel to halt violations, killings, and incursions in the blockaded territory.
In a statement, Hamas said it emphasised its “acceptance” of the roadmap for the second phase during the meeting with “delegations from the mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza”.
Netanyahu rejected the plan last week in a rare public show of defiance against the Trump administration, and his Likud party responded to the regional statement by saying that “Arab states want to topple” Netanyahu.
The BBC reported that after a series of Sunday meetings, Hamas called mediators to compel Israel to implement the ceasefire agreement as Israel continued airstrikes on the enclave.
The dispute also played out through regional diplomacy, with eight foreign ministers condemning Israel’s rejection of the roadmap and warning it “directly threatens to derail” efforts to end the war and lay groundwork for lasting peace.
Roadmap at risk, Gaza toll
The roadmap under discussion foresees Hamas gradually giving up its weapons while Israeli forces stop attacks and begin withdrawing, but Netanyahu said Israel will not retreat from any position in Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed.
“Israel will not retreat from any position in Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed”
That stance left reconstruction and the possible deployment of international forces between Israeli troops and committee-controlled areas on hold, while the plan’s next steps depended on all sides approving the roadmap and beginning a 14-day negotiation period.
In parallel, Israel resumed airstrikes in Gaza after a lull, with the Israeli military saying it struck militants in Khan Younis and Nuseirat and that it was responding to a threat by Islamic Jihad militants.
The Sun Malaysia reported that Israeli operations have killed at least 1,262 Palestinians since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10, according to figures by Gaza’s health ministry considered reliable by the United Nations.
With Kushner scheduled to meet Netanyahu after the Egypt talks, the sources framed the immediate stakes as whether mediators can secure Hamas commitments on disarmament and whether Israel will accept the roadmap’s withdrawal sequence amid ongoing strikes.
