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Kushner to Mideast for Talks on Gaza 08/14 06:56
President Donald Trump's son-in-law and negotiator Jared Kushner will travel
to the Middle East next week to try to advance plans for an end to the conflict
in Gaza after a deal recently announced by the Trump administration ran into
Israeli opposition.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump's son-in-law and negotiator Jared
Kushner will travel to the Middle East next week to try to advance plans for an
end to the conflict in Gaza after a deal recently announced by the Trump
administration ran into Israeli opposition.
An official with the Board of Peace, the body Trump established to oversee
the fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, said Kushner, board high
representative Nickolay Mladenov, and executive board member and former British
Prime Minister Tony Blair would arrive in Israel on Sunday.
The group will then travel to Cairo, where meetings of a Palestinian
technocratic group set to assume control of Gaza under a U.S.-brokered
ceasefire deal have been taking place for the past several months, the official
said. The trip was reported earlier by Axios.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because planning for
details of the trip has not yet been finalized, said the meetings would
demonstrate the determination of Trump and the Board of Peace to "see peace,
prosperity and sustainable security emerge" in a demilitarized Gaza where Hamas
has ceded control to allow reconstruction of the devastated territory.
But Israel has dismissed a recent deal announced by Trump for Hamas to
disarm and Israel to withdraw its forces from the Palestinian territory,
marking a rare public display of friction with the Trump administration. Though
Hamas accepted the plan to decommission its weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said in recent days that Israel would not withdraw until Hamas has
completely disarmed.
The deal had been seen as a potential breakthrough for ending the war in
Gaza. The agreement was based on an October ceasefire that ended major military
operations and brought about the release of the remaining hostages held in
Gaza, but it has stalled on other fronts.
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