Kushner meets Hamas chief in Egypt in push for Gaza disarmament; IDF continues strikes

US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide Jared Kushner met with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in the Egyptian coastal city of El-Alamein on Sunday, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel, even as Israel kept up strikes targeting terror groups in the Strip.

Kushner was joined by Board of Peace senior envoys Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair, as well as top diplomats from Mideast mediating countries Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.

Sunday’s meeting was Kushner’s first with Hayya and other Hamas officials since October 2025, when he sat down with them for the first time to finalize a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Israel.

Trump officials have defended the engagement with the US-designated terror group as necessary for advancing Washington’s Gaza peace plan, while critics have argued that such meetings legitimize Hamas.

Kushner used the meeting to lean on Hamas to begin implementing the Board of Peace’s disarmament plan that it agreed to on July 30, the Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries said.

Hayya told Kushner that Hamas remains committed to the plan, but will only implement it if Israel upholds its end of the bargain, noting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public rejection of the proposal, the Arab diplomat said.

Kushner sought to assure Hayya that the US-controlled Board of Peace would lean on Israel to halt strikes in Gaza and gradually withdraw from the Strip once Hamas begins handing over its weapons, the diplomat added.

Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will conduct no withdrawals until Hamas has been completely disarmed, though a Board of Peace source has told The Times of Israel that the premier privately has shown more flexibility.

While Board of Peace officials had touted an initial halt on Israeli strikes in Gaza, which followed Hamas’s acceptance of the disarmament plan, IDF killings in the Strip have picked up again over the past week.

Kushner, during the Sunday meeting, pressed Hamas to cease shows of force throughout the Strip, which have included the deployment of armed and uniformed Hamas members on the streets of Gaza, the Arab diplomat said.

He also urged the Hamas delegation led by Hayya to allow for a smooth handover of governing authority in the Strip to the new Palestinian technocratic government overseen by the Board of Peace, known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the diplomat said.

While the Board of Peace was hoping to conduct the first handover of weapons from Hamas to the NCAG in the coming weeks, the Arab diplomat said that is unlikely to take place before the end of the year, as the International Stabilization Force tasked with assisting in the process was still in the very initial phases of training.

Moreover, the diplomat expressed skepticism that Netanyahu would allow for any significant progress of the Board of Peace disarmament plan before the October 27 Knesset election. There will then likely be an additional one- to two-month lull in progress, as the next Israeli government is set up.

While senior Trump administration officials have been willing to engage at times with Hamas, the more moderate Palestinian Authority has not received any meetings from such senior Trump officials, who have paid less attention to developments in the West Bank, where the PA has nominal authority.

Both Kushner and Hayya held additional meetings in Egypt, with Kushner sitting down with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi and Hayya meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad.

The meeting between Kushner and Sissi “emphasized the need for all parties to fulfill their obligations under the Gaza Strip ceasefire agreement,” according to presidential spokesperson Mohamed El-Shennawy.

Kushner departed Egypt on Sunday evening for Israel, where he will meet on Monday with Netanyahu, together with Mladenov and Blair.

In addition to halting strikes in Gaza and pushing for Israeli withdrawals in the event that Hamas begins disarming, Kushner will lean on Netanyahu to fulfill humanitarian-related commitments that were made as part of the October 2025 ceasefire, the Arab diplomat said.

These include allowing 600 trucks per day of aid into the Strip and allowing the repair of critical infrastructure throughout the enclave.

Additional Israeli authorizations are also needed to allow for the deployment of the ISF in Gaza and the establishment of a pilot humanitarian zone that the Board of Peace wants to establish on the ruins of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

As for the Yellow Line ceasefire demarcation, which Israel unilaterally pushed toward the coast to give it control of over 60 percent of Gaza — in violation of the October ceasefire that left the IDF in control of roughly 53 percent — Kushner is not expected to raise the issue during his meetings with Netanyahu, the Arab diplomat said.

A Board of Peace source told The Times of Israel last week that Israeli forces aren’t physically deployed along the new Yellow Line and it therefore is not a major concern for the Gaza deal mediators.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, the Israeli military said it targeted two terror operatives, who were advancing attacks, in two separate strikes.

A member of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad was targeted in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, and a Hamas operative was targeted in Nuseirat in central Gaza, according to the military.

“The terrorists advanced terror attacks and were struck in precise aerial strikes to remove the threat,” the army says.

Palestinian media reported that several people were injured in both strikes.

The Gaza strikes came a day after an IDF tank was struck by a Hamas explosive device in the southern Gaza Strip, with the Israeli military decrying the incident as a violation of the ceasefire in the enclave.

The Israel Defense Forces said the incident took place during operations of the Givati Brigade near the Yellow Line, which divides the Israeli-held part of Gaza from the Hamas-held part, with no injuries caused.

Amid efforts to advance a US-backed plan to disarm Hamas in the Strip, Israel quietly halted airstrikes in Gaza for a week before resuming them on Wednesday.

The US-backed Board of Peace is trying to move forward with its roadmap for postwar Gaza, which Hamas has accepted, while calling on the US and other mediators to pressure Israel into agreement. The terror group has avoided the use of the term “disarmament,” saying instead that it agrees to hand over weapons to be stored under a US-backed Palestinian technocrat administration, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, that would run affairs in the territory instead of Hamas, under the supervision of the Board of Peace.

Israeli officials warn that the terror organization is exploiting the process to prevent renewed Israeli military action, with top officials reportedly calling Hamas’s agreement to the deal a “strategic ambush” of Israel.

Amid Israel’s refusal to move forward with the deal, several top Muslim countries on Sunday called on the US to enforce Israel’s compliance.

In a joint statement, the countries including Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia said Israel the rejection threatens Trump’s intensified efforts to end war in Gaza.

“Israel bears responsibility for disrupting peace efforts in Gaza and the Palestinian territories,” the statement read. “These positions amount to a direct repudiation of the Comprehensive Plan, jeopardize its implementation, and fundamentally undermine the collective efforts undertaken to achieve a just and lasting peace.”

Israel’s rejection of the plan “directly threatens to derail the extensive efforts exerted by US President Trump to bring an end to the war in Gaza and establish the conditions for lasting peace,” it said.

The countries called for “sustained and active US engagement to ensure and enforce Israel’s full compliance with the commitments and arrangements envisaged under the Comprehensive Plan and its Road Map, and to prevent further obstruction of their implementation.”

Israel therefore bears “direct and full responsibility for any consequences resulting from its continued rejection, obstruction, delay or non-compliance, including any resulting deterioration of the situation on the ground and disruption of ending the war in Gaza.”

“The ministers further call upon the Board of Peace, with the active support and engagement of the United States, to take immediate and concrete measures within its mandate to uphold the integrity of the Comprehensive Plan and prevent any party from obstructing its implementation,” the statement added.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report

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