Kushner meets Netanyahu as Trump's Gaza peace plan faces Israeli resistance

Jared Kushner landed in Israel on Monday carrying the weight of a peace proposal that his father-in-law's administration had spent months assembling—and that the Israeli government had just rejected. The US President's son-in-law and Middle East envoy had come fresh from rare talks in Egypt with Hamas's new leader, Khalil al-Hayya, where he and a delegation that included former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Board of Peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov discussed the mechanics of disarmament and troop withdrawal. Now he would sit across from Benjamin Netanyahu and try to salvage a plan that seemed to be unraveling before it had begun.

Trump's 15-point roadmap, unveiled last month by the Board of Peace—an international organization the President had created and expanded from its original Gaza focus—called for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the rebuilding of Gaza under a new Palestinian civilian administration. It was, on paper, a comprehensive vision. But Netanyahu had flatly rejected it last week, declaring that Israel would not move troops until Hamas was genuinely disarmed, and that the Israeli Defense Forces would not implement any part of the plan without that precondition met first. The statement was a direct rebuke to the United States, Israel's closest ally.

Netanyahu's position was not merely strategic stubbornness. He faced an October election and a coalition government that included ministers pushing for a harder line on Gaza. Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right National Security Minister, had gone further than rejection—he had called the plan "not acceptable" and, in a podcast interview that aired on August 15, suggested that Israel should conduct "targeted assassinations" of 30 to 40 people nightly, describing some Palestinians as "not worthy of life" and "not even people." The comments, reported across international media, signaled the depth of internal Israeli opposition to any withdrawal or restraint.

The diplomatic effort was not without momentum. Eight Muslim-majority nations—Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia—had issued a joint statement condemning Israel's rejection and warning that it threatened Trump's peace efforts. The ceasefire that had technically been in place since October 10 of the previous year remained nominally intact. But the reality on the ground told a different story. More than 1,200 people had been killed since that ceasefire began, according to figures from Gaza's Health Ministry that the UN considered reliable. At least 300 of those killed were children, according to UNICEF. Israeli airstrikes had continued nearly daily, pausing briefly after Israel's rejection of the plan—reportedly at American request—before resuming. On Sunday, the Israeli military had struck targets in Khan Younis and Nuseirat, with local medics reporting injuries among people sheltering in tent camps.

The broader context made Monday's meetings feel almost surreal. The war itself had begun on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led attackers killed roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 hostages. Israel's response had been a military campaign in Gaza that, by the territory's own health ministry count, had killed more than 73,000 people, including 21,280 children. The UN estimated that approximately 1.9 million people—90 percent of Gaza's entire population—had been displaced since the war started. This was the landscape Kushner was navigating: a ceasefire that was not really a ceasefire, a peace plan that had been rejected before serious implementation could begin, and a political situation in Israel where the government faced pressure from within to reject any compromise at all.

Hamas, for its part, had called on mediators and the Board of Peace to "compel" Israel to approve the roadmap. The organization had participated in the Egypt talks, signaling at least a willingness to engage. But skepticism ran deep on the Israeli side. Many Israelis doubted that Hamas was genuinely ready to disarm, and Netanyahu's coalition gave him little room to move. The question hanging over Kushner's visit was whether any amount of diplomatic pressure or international mediation could bridge a gap that seemed to be widening rather than closing. The ceasefire held in name only. The killing continued. And the plan that was supposed to end it all faced resistance from the very government it was designed to help.