Hamas meets Jared Kushner, Board of Peace delegation for Gaza talks in Cairo

US envoy Jared Kushner, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and Gazan Board of Peace (BoP) Director-General Nikolay Mladenov met with a Hamas delegation in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the implementation of the BoP's 15-point roadmap for the Gaza Strip, a source familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post. The source said that the objective of the meeting was to translate the steps outlined in Mladenov's roadmap into concrete, verifiable actions aimed at maintaining the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and removing Hamas from power in Gaza. The meeting also covered the transfer of all governing responsibilities in the Strip to the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), as well as the deployment of the International Stabilization Force (ISF). According to the source, the US and Hamas delegations also discussed the decommissioning of Hamas weapons and terror infrastructure, IDF withdrawal, and reconstruction and humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza. The source told the Post that "there can be no ambiguity: Hamas must relinquish governing authority and all weapons and military infrastructure. And Gaza can never again be a source of terror for Israel." Additionally, Kushner, Mladenov, and Blair will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials on Monday, with the aim of advancing Trump's 20-point plan for the Gaza Strip. "The United States and Israel agree on the end state, which is a demilitarized Hamas. We will hear the concerns raised and discuss the next steps. What matters is that both sides agree on the desired outcome and are working to find ways to accelerate progress," a BoP source told the Post. The council maintains that there are "no significant gaps" between the BoP and Israel and that it is possible to reach a point where the process moves to the next stage of the plan, namely the disarmament of Hamas. "Israel rejects the Board of Peace's 15-point document on Gaza. The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed," Netanyahu said last week. In recent days, Israel resumed targeted killings in the Gaza Strip after halting them for several days. Israeli officials said that Hamas not only failed to use the period during which the targeted killings were suspended to prepare for the disarmament process but, instead, used it to further strengthen its military capabilities. The meeting between the parties was "very productive," Axios reported Sunday evening citing a source with direct knowledge. Kushner also thanked Hamas leaders for cooperation in returning the bodies of dead hostages to Israel, and the Hamas leaders thanked the White House for its help in improving the Gaza Strip's humanitarian situation, Axios reported. Trump announced that the BoP had reached a "historic" agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza at the end of July. He added that the agreement marks a "critical step toward Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the Board of Peace to help the Palestinian people." About a week later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally rejected the plan during a cabinet meeting, affirming that "the IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed."