Donald Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner said progress toward disarming Hamas and advancing a peace deal in Gaza could start within a month.
The statements come after the U.S. president’s diplomat met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We could be seeing progress… in as little as 30 days, hopefully starting to take some of the weapons out, and hopefully, you know, filling in some of the tunnels as well,” Kushner told American media while in Tel Aviv.
The comments come after Kushner and Netanyahu agreed that an American general would check Hamas’s disarmament before withdrawing from Gaza. As part of the deal, Hamas would also have to give up any future role in governing Gaza. Kushner met Netanyahu a day after holding rare direct talks with Hamas in Egypt, where Hamas committed to the plan. Other Board of Peace members who took part in the discussions include former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Earlier this month, Netanyahu rejected the Gaza plan announced by Trump, promising no military pullout until Hamas is “genuinely” disarmed. At the time, Hamas asked U.S. to pressure Israel into progress. Last month, a Hamas official told Arab media that the group will not withdraw from the political arena but “remain an integral part of the Palestinian national fabric.”
The current Israel–Gaza war started in 2023, after Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups launched a surprise attack against Israel. But the territory’s underlying disputes go back many decades.
The proposed 30-day timetable marks a shift from ceasefire diplomacy toward an implementation and verification phase, with Washington attempting to link Hamas’s disarmament directly to Israeli withdrawal and Gaza’s future governance. The deployment of an American general to verify compliance could give the U.S. an unusually direct role in determining whether both sides meet their obligations, while Hamas’s exclusion from post-war governance would seek to translate military disarmament into lasting political change.
The critical test will be whether Hamas relinquishes substantive capabilities—including weapons, tunnels, and its capacity to rearm—rather than undertaking symbolic measures. Credible progress could open the way for an internationally supervised post-war order in Gaza; failure would reinforce Israeli arguments that negotiated disarmament cannot be enforced and increase the likelihood of prolonged or renewed military operations. (AFP)
