U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner said on Monday (August 17, 2026) that progress towards disarming Hamas and moving forward with a Gaza peace plan could begin within a month after meeting 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,” Mr. Kushner told Fox News while in Tel Aviv.

The comments came as Mr. Kushner and Mr. Netanyahu agreed that an American general would verify Hamas’s disarmament, an Israeli official said, as the premier insisted there would be no Israeli pullout from Gaza until then.

The understanding marks a new attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to satisfy Israel after Mr. Netanyahu, facing a tough re-election fight, publicly rejected the latest part of a U.S. plan aimed at “ending the devastating Gaza war”.

Mr. Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a long-time family friend of Netanyahu, met the Israeli leader in Jerusalem a day after holding rare direct talks in Egypt with Hamas, which has publicly committed itself to the plan.

The two sides “agreed that no redeployment or reconstruction would take place in the Gaza Strip before Hamas is disarmed throughout Gaza”, a senior Israeli official told AFP.

“It was also agreed that the first step toward the demilitarisation of the Strip would be to require Hamas to hand over its weapons for decommissioning under the supervision of an American general,” the official said.

A roadmap agreed by Hamas on July 30 said that the decommissioning of weapons would be supervised by the International Stabilisation Force, the nascent unit that aims to deploy to Gaza if the situation calms. It is led by U.S. Major General Jasper Jeffers.

Hamas had pledged to hand over its weapons to a new Palestinian governing body, an arrangement that brought scepticism from Netanyahu but which Trump hailed as a breakthrough.

An official with Mr. Trump’s “Board of Peace” implementing the deal said that “every weapon collected will be fully decommissioned so it cannot be used again” and said that Israel “retains its full right of self-defence”.

“If Hamas resorts to terror, violence or attempts to rearm, Israel will retain the right to act accordingly,” the official said.

Other Board of Peace members joining Kushner in the talks included former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mr. Kushner in the talks in Egypt had demanded that Hamas prove it is giving up its weapons and that the group — whose unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack against Israel launched the Gaza war — renounce any future role in governing the Palestinian territory, according to sources in the negotiation.

A Hamas official said the group, represented by its new leader Khalil al-Hayya, told Mr. Kushner it was committed to the Gaza plan and wanted pressure on Mr. Netanyahu.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday (August 9, 2026) rejected a Gaza plan hailed by U.S. President Donald Trump, vowing no military pullout until Hamas is “genuinely” disarmed.

After more than a week of gradually escalating criticism of the plan, Mr. Netanyahu explicitly opposed it as he faced pushback from his right-wing base ahead of elections.

“Israel rejects the 15-point document,” Mr. Netanyahu said, referring to a plan endorsed in late July by Hamas.

The Israeli military “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens,” Mr. Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting.

The document, the latest stage in a U.S.-led ceasefire announced in October that has reduced but not ended Israeli operations in Gaza, said Hamas would surrender weapons to a nascent Palestinian governing body.

The plan said Israel would begin pulling out forces in tandem with the disarmament, an idea adamantly rejected by Israel which also wants Hamas to destroy its weapons.

After meeting Mr. Netanyahu last week, Mr. Trump’s body implementing the deal, dubbed the Board of Peace, backtracked and said Israel would only need to withdraw after “complete” disarmament.

Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, who, according to polls, is in a tight race to stay in power, has faced calls from his far-right allies to hold a new cabinet vote and end the Gaza plan.

Mr. Netanyahu said that Israel was speaking with the United States about its objections.

“They have ideas; some of them are acceptable to us and some are not, and we know how to stand our ground on these matters,” he said.

Mr. Netanyahu said that Hamas must give up all of its weapons, a goal that Board of Peace members say is not realistically achievable.

“We are talking about real disarmament, not fictitious disarmament,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters on Saturday (December 6, 2025) that a credible Palestinian civil administration and a vetted, trained police force should be in place to allow Hamas to disarm, saying the group is prepared to hand over governance of the enclave.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, Mr. Fidan said that without those initial steps, expecting Hamas to disarm in the first phase of the ceasefire deal is neither “realistic nor doable.”

He said the proposed police force would exclude Hamas members and would be backed by an international stabilisation force. He added that Washington was pressing Israel over Turkiye’s bid to join the force.

Mr. Fidan warned that failure by the international community to advance the ceasefire plan to its next stage would amount to a “huge failure” for the world and for Washington, noting that U.S. President Donald Trump had personally led the push.