US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been striving to find a solution to the standoff over the 100-200 Hamas terrorists holed up in Rafah tunnels on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line, but remain at an impasse.
An Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Tuesday evening that “there is no agreed-upon solution regarding the terrorists in Rafah.”
According to a Channel 12 news report on Tuesday, Israel put forth a plan under which it would agree to let the Hamas members emerge, provided they surrender their weapons and pledge not to return to terrorism.
The plan would see the operatives disarm “according to [US President Donald] Trump’s instructions,” the TV network said, with Israel agreeing not to target them as they exit the tunnels.
The Kan public broadcaster, however, reported Tuesday that while Kushner pushed Netanyahu to allow the Hamas members to pass unarmed to the western side of Gaza, Israel refused to agree to such a proposal.
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According to Kan, Kushner impressed on Netanyahu the grave importance to Trump in resolving this issue and allowing the overall peace plan to move forward, and that Washington would not accept an outcome in which Israel kills the Hamas combatants.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (second from right) and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer (right) meet with top White House adviser Jared Kushner (second from left) and US adviser Aryeh Lightstone (left) meet in Jerusalem on November 10, 2025. (Haim Zach/GPO)
Meanwhile, the Ynet news site, citing a member of the security cabinet, said that Netanyahu and Kushner had agreed to a deal that would see the Hamas members in question exiled to a third country.
However, the plan is not moving forward because no country has agreed to take them in, according to the report. An Israeli official, however, denied that there was any such deal in place to exile the Hamas fighters.
For weeks, Netanyahu’s office has asserted that it would not grant safe passage to the holed-up Hamas fighters. US officials have reportedly told Israel that the standoff should not overshadow the larger challenge of dealing with an estimated 20,000 armed operatives still active in Hamas-controlled areas.
Turkey is said to be playing a central mediating role in talks coordinated through Washington. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a meeting on Monday in Washington with visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan “to discuss the ceasefire in Gaza and next steps to ensure stability in the region.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with Maj. Gen. Yaki Dolf as he visits the US-Israel Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel, October 24, 2025. (Fadel Senna/Pool Photo via AP)
Multiple reports in recent days have indicated that the return on Sunday of the remains of Hadar Goldin — an Israeli soldier who was killed in 2014 and whose body was held in Gaza for 11 years — was tied to the negotiations over the evacuation of the trapped Hamas operatives, though there have been no official comments on the matter.
Meanwhile, the Politico news site on Tuesday published a series of documents that have been circulated at the US-led Gaza ceasefire monitoring hub that the news site claimed reveal doubts in Washington about the ability to maintain the ceasefire.
A slide deck obtained by Politico includes a question mark between phases one and two of the ceasefire, in what the site suggested underscores US uncertainty about the prospects of establishing an International Stabilization Force and disarming Hamas.
A State Department spokesperson, however, dismissed the story’s claims, saying it “demonstrates a complete ignorance of the workings of the Gaza effort. Everyone wants to be a part of President Trump’s historic Middle East peace effort.”
“From the moment President Trump announced his 20 Point Plan, there has been an avalanche of ideas, suggestions and proposals from dozens of countries and NGOs on an array of issues,” the spokesperson asserted. “We couldn’t possibly comment on the contents of the thousands of ideas and proposals that may or may not have been reviewed. The Trump administration will continue to uphold the ceasefire and effectively implement President Trump’s 20 Point Plan.”
A boy pulls a donkey cart laden with containers carrying potable water, as other Palestinian children help push it along a road in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on November 10, 2025. (Eyad Baba / AFP)
The State Department also flatly denied a Tuesday report in the Saudi al-Hadath network that Yasser Abu Shabab, who heads an anti-Hamas militia in Gaza, recently held a secret meeting with Kushner at the US-led Gaza ceasefire monitoring hub in Kiryat Gat, dismissing it as “fake news.”
The report had claimed that the pair discussed Abu Shabab’s militia potentially playing a role in securing the exit of Hamas fighters currently holed up on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line in Rafah.
No exact date for the meeting was given in the report. Kushner arrived in Israel on Monday.
Abu Shabab’s militia was formed about six months ago and is based in eastern Rafah — in territory under IDF control — and provides patronage to several thousand Gazan residents with Israeli military and economic assistance. The militia presents itself as fighting Hamas and seeking to overthrow it.
The unconfirmed report also claimed that Abu Shabab has representatives present daily at the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat.
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