Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, met with Hamas leaders in Egypt on Sunday, two Hamas officials and another official briefed on the meetings said. The talks were part of a diplomatic push to advance Mr. Trump’s plan for the future of Gaza.
A U.S. official confirmed that Mr. Kushner was in Egypt for talks on Gaza, without providing further details. All four officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail Mr. Kushner’s meetings.
Mr. Kushner’s visit to the Middle East comes as the U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hamas appeared to hit a dead end. Last month, Mr. Trump announced that his Board of Peace had reached an agreement with Hamas that aimed to strip the Palestinian group of its weapons.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later said he rejected the deal, appearing to put it on ice. After the meetings with Hamas on Sunday, Mr. Kushner was expected to travel to Israel to meet with Mr. Netanyahu to discuss the situation in Gaza.
Direct talks between the U.S. government and Hamas, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization, were once rare. But the Trump administration broke that taboo, holding multiple rounds of negotiations with the group to win freedom for the hostages Hamas seized in Israel and to end the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
Though Mr. Kushner does not hold an official U.S. government position, Mr. Trump has tapped him, alongside real estate developer Steve Witkoff, to lead diplomacy on matters as diverse as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.
Disarming Hamas is a key component of the president’s 20-point plan for the Palestinian enclave, much of which is still unrealized nearly a year after an initial cease-fire was reached last October. But many Israelis are skeptical of the Trump administration’s proposal and say it is unlikely to actually compel Hamas to give up its weapons.
For the deal with Hamas to go ahead, Israel would also most likely have to agree to a phased timeline for withdrawing its forces from the Gaza Strip in parallel with Hamas gradually handing over its weapons. Mr. Netanyahu has been loath to do so, demanding “genuine disarmament” before any Israeli withdrawals.
Analysts said the Israeli prime minister’s position reflected the country’s hawkish turn after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that ignited the two-year war in Gaza. Mr. Netanyahu’s efforts to appeal to voters ahead of national elections this fall also were a factor, they said.
Neither Mr. Kushner nor Hamas publicly discussed their meeting in Egypt.
Hamas said a delegation of senior officials led by Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s political chief, had arrived in Egypt to meet with “mediators and guarantors” of the Gaza cease-fire talks. The group said it was committed to Mr. Trump’s peace framework, which it accused Israel of undermining by continuing to bombard the enclave despite the truce.
Israel has “escalated militarily on the ground and deepened the humanitarian catastrophe, even as it explicitly rejected the road map,” Hamas said in a statement.
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, met with Mr. Kushner to discuss the Gaza peace process, among other issues, according to a statement from the president’s s office.
Adam Rasgon contributed reporting.