US President Donald Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner said Monday that progress towards disarming Hamas and moving forward with a Gaza peace plan could begin within a month, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The comments came as Kushner and Netanyahu agreed that an American general would verify Hamas’s disarmament, an Israeli official said, as the premier insisted there would be no Israeli pullout from Gaza until then.
Earlier reporting noted: Israeli PM Netanyahu, Trump envoy agree on US general’s supervision on Hamas disarmament Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on Monday with US envoy Jared Kushner that a US general should supervise Hamas’s disarmament, a day after Donald Trump’s son-in-law met the Palestinian militant group’s representative. The understanding marks a new attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to satisfy Israel after Netanyahu, facing a tough re-election fight, publicly rejected the latest part of a US plan aimed at ending the devastating Gaza war. It is led by US Major General Jasper Jeffers. Its figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
A roadmap agreed by Hamas on July 30 said that the decommissioning of weapons would be supervised by the International Stabilization Force, the nascent unit that aims to deploy to Gaza if the situation calms. In an interview that generated wide attention in the Arab world, Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right national security minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet, said that Israel should kill 30 to 40 people every night in Gaza. Israeli operations have killed at least 1,265 Palestinians since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10, according to figures by Gaza’s health ministry, which is under Hamas.
“It was also agreed that the first step toward the demilitarisation of the Strip would be to require Hamas to hand over its weapons for decommissioning under the supervision of an American general,” the official said. An official with Trump’s “Board of Peace” implementing the deal said that “every weapon collected will be fully decommissioned so it cannot be used again” and said that Israel “retains its full right of self-defence”. Earlier reporting noted: According to an official quoted in an AFP report, Netanyahu told Kushner that Israel would not pull troops from Gaza until then till the disarmament is complete. Earlier reporting noted: The two sides “agreed that the first step toward the demilitarisation of the Strip would be to require Hamas to hand over its weapons for decommissioning under the supervision of an American general,” the Israeli official quoted in the report said.
