Washington is stepping up efforts to rescue President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan as a dispute over Hamas’s disarmament threatens to derail the next phase of the agreement.
Trump’s envoys, Jared Kushner and Nikolay Mladenov, have shuttled between Cairo and Jerusalem, meeting with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators, Israeli officials and representatives of Hamas in an effort to bridge the widening gaps.
At the heart of the standoff is a fundamental disagreement over sequencing: Israel insists Hamas–which the U.S. and the European Union have deemed a terrorist organization–must surrender its weapons before Israeli forces withdraw, while Washington is pushing for the two processes to move forward in parallel. With the transition to the plan’s second phase still blocked, U.S. officials are trying to turn broad political commitments into concrete steps that can preserve the cease-fire and set the stage for a new administration of Gaza.
Kushner and Mladenov met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday for four hours in an effort to move the plan forward, according to Israeli sources.
The meeting followed talks in Cairo on Sunday between Kushner and Mladenov and Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators, with the participation of Hamas leaders, including the group’s political bureau chief, Khalil al-Hayya. Hayya also met with Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad as part of consultations over the peace plan.
A person familiar with the talks told MBN that Kushner’s meeting with Hamas in Egypt was aimed at translating the roadmap’s commitments into practical and verifiable steps to preserve the ceasefire and move toward a transition in which Hamas would relinquish control of Gaza. A national committee is supposed to assume responsibility for administering the territory, with no role for Hamas in its governance.
The official said the meeting focused on the need for Hamas to accept relinquishing power and hand over all weapons and military infrastructure to make meaningful progress under the peace plan.
Trump told Fox News on Monday that Israel should not launch attacks on the Gaza Strip at this time, saying Hamas had agreed to lay down its arms and that there had been “positive progress” on the issue.
The president also said his administration was in direct contact with the Israeli government, mediators and Hamas as part of efforts to advance the Gaza peace plan.
The central dispute concerns the sequencing of Hamas’s disarmament and the Israeli withdrawal and reconstruction of the territory.
During his meeting with Kushner and Mladenov, Netanyahu reiterated his opposition to the new U.S.-backed roadmap, insisting that the Israeli military would not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas and other armed groups had been fully disarmed.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received Kushner in the coastal city of El Alamein, accompanied by Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and intelligence chief Hassan Rashad.
The Egyptian presidency said Sisi stressed the need for all parties to fulfill their obligations under the agreement to end the war in Gaza, reached at the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit in October 2025.
Trump’s plan calls for the agreement to be implemented in stages, with Israeli forces withdrawing in tandem with progress on disarmament. An international stabilization force, alongside a new Palestinian police force, would be responsible for securing the territory.
Israel’s Channel 12 quoted a political source as saying the Kushner-Netanyahu meeting was exceptionally long and that, despite significant gaps, the two sides agreed that reconstruction of Gaza should not begin until Hamas had been fully disarmed, including its heavy and light weapons.
The source said Netanyahu stressed during the meeting that Israel would not retreat from what he described as the “yellow line,” nor give up its freedom of military action when it comes to its security. That includes targeting Hamas elite forces, confronting immediate threats and pursuing militants involved in the Oct. 7 attack.
Hamas, meanwhile, said in a statement that the group and other armed factions had complied with the first phase of the cease-fire agreement. It accused Israel of failing to meet its obligations, escalating military operations and rejecting the roadmap for the second phase.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said Trump’s statements on the plan reaffirmed the commitment to the ceasefire process. He called on the U.S. president to pressure the Israeli government to implement the agreed measures and move to the second phase.
Five Arab countries, along with Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia, condemned Israel’s rejection of Trump’s plan, saying it threatened efforts to end the war in Gaza.
Egyptian Brig. Gen. Khaled Okasha, head of the Regional Security and Risk Analysis Group, told MBN that Hamas was under pressure to accept the U.S. proposal and that the disarmament process would proceed according to the plan. He said, in his assessment, that the group was seeking an opportunity to participate again in future elections.
While Washington is pushing for a gradual implementation of the agreement, with disarmament proceeding alongside the Israeli withdrawal and the transition to reconstruction, Israel insists that Hamas and other armed groups must be fully disarmed before its forces withdraw.
Hamas, for its part, has tied the implementation of its commitments to a halt in attacks, an Israeli withdrawal and Israel’s fulfillment of its obligations under the ceasefire agreement.
Caught between these competing positions, Washington is using Kushner and Mladenov’s diplomacy, along with contacts with Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Israel and Hamas, to turn the roadmap from a set of political understandings into steps that can be implemented on the ground.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
