US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide Jared Kushner met with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in the Egyptian coastal city of El-Alamein on Sunday, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel, even as Israel kept up strikes targeting terror groups in the Strip.
Kushner was joined by Board of Peace senior envoys Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair, as well as top diplomats from Mideast mediating countries Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.
Sunday’s meeting was Kushner’s first with Hayya and other Hamas officials since October2025, when he met with them for the first time to finalize a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Israel.
Trump officials have defended the engagement with the US-designated terror group as necessary for advancing Washington’s Gaza peace plan, while critics have argued that such meetings legitimize Hamas.
Kushner used the meeting to lean on Hamas to begin implementing the Board of Peace’s disarmament plan that it agreed to on July 30, the Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries said.
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Hayya told Kushner that Hamas remains committed to the plan, but will only implement it if Israel upholds its end of the bargain, noting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public rejection of the proposal, the Arab diplomat said.
Kushner sought to assure Hayya that the US-controlled Board of Peace would lean on Israel to halt strikes in Gaza and gradually withdraw from the Strip once Hamas begins handing over its weapons, the diplomat added.
Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will conduct no withdrawals until Hamas has been completely disarmed, though a Board of Peace source has told The Times of Israel that the premier privately has shown more flexibility.
US Vice President JD Vance (L) waits, alongside US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (C) and Jared Kushner, to meet with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (not seen), at the Burgenstock luxury hotel complex overlooking Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 21, 2026. (Nathan Howard / POOL / AFP)
While Board of Peace officials had touted an initial halt on Israeli strikes in Gaza, which followed Hamas’s acceptance of the disarmament plan, IDF killings in the Strip have picked up again over the past week.
Kushner, during the Sunday meeting, pressed Hamas to cease shows of force throughout the Strip, which have included the deployment of armed and uniformed Hamas members on the streets of Gaza, the Arab diplomat said.
He also urged the Hamas delegation led by Hayya to allow for a smooth handover of governing authority in the Strip to the new Palestinian technocratic government overseen by the Board of Peace, known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the diplomat said.
While the Board of Peace was hoping to conduct the first handover of weapons from Hamas to the NCAG in the coming weeks, the Arab diplomat said that is unlikely to take place before the end of the year, as the International Stabilization Force tasked with assisting in the process was still in the very initial phases of training.
Moreover, the diplomat expressed skepticism that Netanyahu would allow for any significant progress of the Board of Peace disarmament plan before the October 27 Knesset election. There will then likely be an additional one- to two-month lull in progress, as the next Israeli government is set up.
While senior Trump administration officials have been willing to engage at times with Hamas, the more moderate Palestinian Authority has not received any meetings from such senior Trump officials, who have paid less attention to developments in the West Bank, where the PA has nominal authority.
US senior official Jared Kushner (second from left) meets with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi in El-Alamein, Egypt, on August 16, 2026. (Egyptian Presidency)
Kushner was expected to next travel to Israel, where he is slated to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
Both Kushner and Hayya held additional meetings in Egypt.
Ahead of their meeting, Kushner met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi hours after Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya met with Cairo’s spymaster Hassan Rashad.
The meeting between Kushner and Sissi “emphasized the need for all parties to fulfill their obligations under the Gaza Strip ceasefire agreement,” according to presidential spokesperson Mohamed El-Shennawy.
There was no immediate comment from Kushner.
Egypt’s General Intelligence Service head, Hassan Rashad (right), hosts Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya in Cairo, August 16, 2026. (Via X, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)
The Hamas delegation, in a meeting with Rashad, “reaffirmed commitment to completing US President Donald Trump’s plan.”
A Hamas source told AFP that the talks with Egyptian, Qatari, and Turkish mediators hoped “to compel Israel to abide by the agreement.”
Strikes continue
Meanwhile, on Sunday, the Israeli military said it targeted two terror operatives, who were advancing attacks, in two separate strikes.
A member of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad was targeted in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, and a Hamas operative was targeted in Nuseirat in central Gaza, according to the military.
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an alleged Israeli strike on a tent in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on August 16, 2026. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
“The terrorists advanced terror attacks and were struck in precise aerial strikes to remove the threat,” the army says.
Palestinian media reported that several people were injured in both strikes.
The Gaza strikes came a day after an IDF tank was struck by a Hamas explosive device in the southern Gaza Strip, with the Israeli military decrying the incident as a violation of the ceasefire in the enclave.
The Israel Defense Forces said the incident took place during operations of the Givati Brigade near the Yellow Line, which divides the Israeli-held part of Gaza from the Hamas-held part, with no injuries caused.
Amid efforts to advance a US-backed plan to disarm Hamas in the Strip, Israel quietly halted airstrikes in Gaza for a week before resuming them on Wednesday.
The US-backed Board of Peace is trying to move forward with its roadmap for postwar Gaza, which Hamas has accepted, while calling on the US and other mediators to pressure Israel into agreement. The terror group has avoided the use of the term “disarmament,” saying instead that it agrees to hand over weapons to be stored under a US-backed Palestinian technocrat administration, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, that would run affairs in the territory instead of Hamas, under the supervision of the Board of Peace.
Israeli officials warn that the terror organization is exploiting the process to prevent renewed Israeli military action, with top officials reportedly calling Hamas’s agreement to the deal a “strategic ambush” of Israel.
Israel launched the war after Hamas-led terrorists carried out a brutal massacre of southern communities on October 7, 2023.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report
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