A marathon meeting between Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday left the fate of the Gaza ceasefire unclear, with officials signaling moderate optimism but offering no concrete Israeli commitment to the latest American plan. [1] An Israeli official was blunter to the Guardian: there had been no breakthrough, the IDF will not withdraw, and operations in Gaza continue. [2]
Sunday's edition recorded the shuttle's opening leg as Kushner worked through regional capitals. Monday delivered the hardest stop, Netanyahu's own office.
What Happened in the Room
The meeting ran three hours by the Guardian's count, longer by others'. Former British prime minister Tony Blair and Nickolay Mladenov, director of the US-created Board of Peace, joined. [1][2] Netanyahu's office called the talks "deep and constructive" and announced two working groups, one on disarmament and demilitarization of Gaza and another on public health. Both Israel and the board agreed demilitarization "should be prompt and completed before any reconstruction." A Board of Peace official added that it must cover "every weapon, light and heavy, and every tunnel"; another called the session "very productive" and said "the Israelis are going to give this a chance. Now it's up to Hamas." Asked whether Israel had committed to the American plan, a spokesperson for Mladenov offered four words: a "work in progress." [1]
Netanyahu went further than sequencing. He requested that an American general personally supervise Hamas's handover of weapons, the Israeli official said. [2]
The Cairo Meeting It Followed
The Jerusalem session followed Kushner's two-hour meeting in Cairo on Sunday with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya, with officials from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey present. [1] Hamas says it has already agreed to the roadmap and is waiting for mediators to open the plan's fourteen-day negotiation period to set an implementation timetable, which requires every party's approval before it can begin. [1][2] The group's central demand is that Israel halt its attacks and withdraw to the so-called yellow line first. That line was never precisely defined; Israeli forces have moved beyond it and now occupy about sixty percent of the strip. [1]
The Sequence Fight
Everything else Monday was positioning around one question: which happens first, disarmament or withdrawal. Netanyahu rejected the fifteen-point American roadmap days ago on exactly those grounds, and repeated Monday that there would be no pullout or reconstruction before Hamas disarms across all of Gaza. [1][3] Hamas has agreed to the text and urges the Board of Peace to compel Israel to sign. Eight governments including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar condemned the Israeli rejection and demanded "immediate and concrete measures" against obstruction. [4]
Israeli reporting framed what Kushner carried into the room. Yedioth Ahronoth said he brought a list of measures Washington wanted fulfilled: halting Israeli strikes in Gaza, advancing withdrawal, and a major increase in humanitarian aid. Haaretz reported the meeting ended with Washington agreeing Israel could keep striking, apparently contradicting Trump's own statement hours earlier that Israel "should not be striking in Gaza." [2]
The politics are not subtle. Netanyahu cast his ballot in Likud's primary the same day, polls badly behind, with Gaza the issue his challengers press hardest. [2] Two working groups are where sequencing goes to wait. For Gaza's two million people, Monday produced calendars, committees, and a ceasefire that has cost more than 1,200 Palestinian lives since October even by the counting that continues. [2] What it did not produce is a withdrawal date, or a disarmament date, or anything either side can be held to before an Israeli election.
-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem