Kushner meets Netanyahu after rare talks with Hamas as Washington pushes a new road map – but Israeli strikes continue, more than 1,250 Palestinians have been killed since last October’s ceasefire, and two million people remain trapped in an enclave waiting for diplomacy to catch up with their lives
GAZA/JERUSALEM/CAIRO – Gaza has slipped somewhat from the world’s front pages, overtaken by war with Iran, turmoil elsewhere in the Middle East and the relentless churn of international politics.
It has not, however, stopped suffering.
Nearly ten months after the October 2025 ceasefire brought the worst of the two-year Gaza war to a halt, people continue to be killed, Israeli forces remain across large parts of the territory, reconstruction has barely begun on the scale required and a political settlement remains elusive.
The latest diplomatic effort is unusually significant. Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in- law, met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday after holding a rare, more than two-hour meeting in Egypt with senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya. Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators were also involved in the Cairo discussions.
At the centre of those talks is a U.S.-backed road map intended to move the Gaza ceasefire into its next phase. It envisages Hamas disarming, Israeli forces withdrawing in stages, an international stabilisation force working alongside a new Palestinian police service, reconstruction beginning and Gaza eventually being administered by a Palestinian technocratic authority rather than Hamas.
On paper, that could represent the most consequential opening since the ceasefire itself.
In practice, the parties remain divided over the question that has repeatedly paralysed the process: who moves first?
