U.S. negotiator Jared Kushner met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, a day after holding rare talks in Egypt with the leader of Hamas, in an effort to revive a stalled U.S.-backed plan for Gaza.
The two agreed that demilitarization of the territory should begin with a handover of Hamas weapons supervised by an American military general, a senior Israeli official told NBC News. The White House did not immediately comment on the account.
The meeting ran for hours and produced no firm Israeli commitment to the plan, with officials signaling cautious optimism, The Associated Press reported. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Nickolay Mladenov, director of the U.S.-created Board of Peace overseeing the ceasefire, also attended.
At issue is a 15-point road map under which Hamas would disarm and Israel would withdraw from Gaza. Hamas has accepted the plan and has urged mediators and the Board of Peace to press Israel to do the same. Netanyahu rejected it earlier this month, saying no withdrawal would take place until Hamas is genuinely disarmed. Israeli forces control roughly 60% of the territory.
On Sunday, Kushner spent more than two hours with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt, according to a regional official and a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks. Officials from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey also took part. Kushner met separately with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in El Alamein.
The talks aim to convert the road map into verifiable steps, including maintaining the ceasefire, transferring governing authority to a committee that excludes Hamas, enabling Israeli withdrawals and deploying an international stabilizing force, a source told CBS News.
Hamas welcomed a joint statement issued Monday by the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt criticizing Israel's rejection of the plan. Netanyahu's Likud party responded that Arab governments were seeking to remove him from office.
At stake are the lives of about 2 million people in Gaza and the reconstruction of the enclave, more than 10 months after the ceasefire halted major military operations. A meeting between Kushner, fellow envoy Steve Witkoff and Hamas leaders in Egypt last year helped secure that truce.