Khalil Al-Hayya, the Hamas chief who met US envoy Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, in Cairo on Sunday, emerged as a pivotal figure in the Palestinian militant group during the Gaza war as Israel killed its other leaders. Named Hamas’ overall leader in July, Hayya narrowly escaped assassination himself in a 2025 Israeli airstrike in Qatar that killed his son and aides.
The meetings have marked a departure from Washington’s longstanding policy of shunning Hamas, which the US designates as a terrorist group. Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in the October 7 attack on Israel, and abducted another 251. Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed more than 73,000 people, according to Gazan health authorities.
Hamas has rejected the word “disarmament”, instead saying it has agreed to hand over its weapons to be stored under the control of a US-backed Palestinian technocratic government. Witkoff said he had expressed condolences to Hayya during their meeting for the loss of his son Hammam in Israel’s Doha airstrike. “I told him that I had lost a son, and that we were both members of a really bad club, parents who have buried children,” Witkoff told CBS News’ 60 Minutes programme. Hayya has said he and Witkoff exchanged “humane words” over the loss of their sons. “But the Zionist army unit completely collapsed,” he said in comments published by the Hamas-linked Palestinian Information Center in 2024, referring to Israel’s military.
