US President Donald Trump's envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner will visit Israel next week in hopes of bridging gaps on a Gaza plan rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, officials said Friday.
Kushner and Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza of Trump's so-called Board of Peace, tasked with implementing the deal, will visit both Israel and key mediator Egypt.
The trip comes after Netanyahu publicly rejected a 15-point plan announced by Mladenov in which Hamas agreed to hand over its weapons to a new Palestinian governing committee in Gaza.
A Board of Peace official said Kushner and Mladenov hoped for "constructive conversations" on advancing Trump's overall peace plan, which began with the October 2025 declaration of a ceasefire that has reduced but not ended Israeli strikes in Gaza.
"The United States and Israel agree on the end state, which is a demilitarised Hamas," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"We will hear the concerns that have been raised and talk about next steps. What is critical is that we both agree on the desired outcome and are finding ways to accelerate progress."
The latest part of the Gaza plan, to which Hamas agreed in late July, would start a phased Israeli withdrawal from much of the Strip, according to an initial version released by the Board of Peace.
Mladenov later backtracked and said that Israel would not need to pull out troops until a complete Hamas disarmament.
Netanyahu had vowed no pullout and has voiced scepticism that Hamas would disarm, saying it should destroy weapons in a verifiable way.
Hamas insisted it was abiding by the deal.
"We continue to await pressure from the mediators and the US side on Netanyahu and his government to compel him to abide by the roadmap," Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim told AFP.
He called for the United States to "prevent the disruption of the ceasefire agreement process for political and electoral reasons", referring to October 27 Israeli elections in which polls say Netanyahu faces a close contest.
Israel carried out deadly airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday and Thursday, breaking a lull of over a week following Trump's announcement of the latest stage of the deal, which he called a "major milestone".
"What frightens me most is for the agreement to remain suspended, leaving us neither at peace nor completely out of the war," said Zahraa Al-Khatib, who is from northern Gaza and has been displaced to Khan Yunis in the south.
"We want to know what will happen to us and to our children."
Nearly all of Gaza's population has been displaced by the relentless Israeli offensive, launched after Hamas led the deadliest ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Trump administration pushed through the October 2025 ceasefire, but since then Israeli operations have killed 1,259 Palestinians, according to figures by Gaza's health ministry, which is under Hamas. Its figures are considered reliable
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