CAIRO: US negotiator Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, has held talks in Egypt on the future of the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian presidency said on Sunday, reported German Press Agency (dpa).
Kushner met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the coastal city of El-Alamein, with foreign minister Badr Abdelatty and intelligence chief Hassan Rashad also attending the talks.
Kushner is also expected to meet a Hamas delegation in Egypt, officials within the Palestinian organisation said. The meeting was said to have been brokered by Egyptian intelligence.
He is then due to travel to Israel for further talks, where media reports said he is expected to meet prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, among others.
Kushner’s diplomatic efforts come after Netanyahu said a week ago that Israel rejected a US-backed roadmap drawn up by Trump’s so-called Board of Peace for the Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli army will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed,” Netanyahu said. He also reiterated his opposition to an independent Palestinian state.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim, however, said the group remained committed to the Gaza roadmap.
Under the plan, Israel and Hamas are to cease hostilities, while a transitional Palestinian administration would assume responsibility for governance and security with the support of an international stabilisation force.
Israel would be expected to withdraw gradually from the Gaza Strip only after Hamas had handed over all its weapons sector by sector in a process subject to international verification. But the exact sequencing remains a major point of contention.
The foreign ministers of the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt issued a joint statement criticising Israel’s rejection of the roadmap and its opposition to a two-state solution.
“Such rejection confirms that Israel now bears responsibility for obstructing the efforts to bring peace in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the ministers said in a statement on Sunday evening.
They also stressed the importance of continued US engagement to ensure and enforce Israel’s full compliance with the commitments set out in the plan.
