US mediator Kushner meets Netanyahu for talks on Trump’s Gaza plan

About 200 Hamas fighters stay trapped successful Rafah tunnels arsenic Israel refuses to assistance them passage, threatening the truce.

US mediator Jared Kushner has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sermon the fragile US-backed ceasefire successful Gaza.

Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump who helped broker the agreement, met Netanyahu successful Jerusalem connected Monday arsenic portion of US efforts to stabilise the tenuous truce.

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The gathering comes a period aft Washington and determination powers pushed Israel to hold to a ceasefire. The truce has partially halted 2 years of Israeli bombardment, which levelled overmuch of Gaza and killed much than 69,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian authorities.

The talks focused connected immoderate of the astir contentious elements of Trump’s 20-point program to extremity Israel’s two-year warfare connected the Palestinian territory, according to Israeli authorities spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian.

The officials discussed plans for the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of planetary information forces and the constitution of a technocratic authorities successful the territory that excludes Hamas, she said.

Hamas has repeatedly insisted that relinquishing its weapons is simply a reddish line.

Addressing Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, Netanyahu promised that Gaza would beryllium “demilitarised, either the casual mode oregon the hard way”, successful what was a thinly veiled menace to escalate the war.

Hamas fighters successful Rafah

A cardinal constituent of contention remains a radical of astir 200 Hamas fighters trapped successful tunnels beneath Rafah, an country inactive controlled by Israeli forces. Hamas has demanded their harmless transition to Gaza’s interior, but Israel has refused.

The US’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, described the connection to assistance the fighters harmless transition successful speech for disarmament arsenic “a trial case” for the broader bid plan.

A Hamas authoritative confirmed that negotiations implicit the contented were ongoing, saying the radical was anxious to resoluteness the quality “to region immoderate pretext Israel could usage to undermine the ceasefire agreement”.

However, helium ruled retired surrendering the fighters. Another Palestinian root speaking to Reuters warned that immoderate Israeli effort to forcibly extract them could hazard the full truce.

Beyond the contiguous crisis, the ceasefire besides requires statement connected a transitional governing assembly for Gaza excluding Hamas, the enactment of the projected stabilisation force, and conditions for reconstruction and disarmament. Each of these steps is expected to look absorption from some Hamas and Israel, fixed the governmental and information implications.

The projected planetary unit could necessitate a United Nations mandate earlier deployment, and fewer nations person expressed willingness to enactment without one. Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye are among the imaginable contributors.

However, the United Arab Emirates has signalled hesitation. “Under specified circumstances, the UAE volition astir apt not enactment successful specified a force,” Emirati statesmanlike advisor Anwar Gargash said astatine the Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate Forum.