Gaza at a Crossroads: Questions Behind the U.S.-Israel Understanding

UPDATE:  See explosive PMW Update

Peloni

Trump envoy Jarad Kushner meets with PM Netanyahu on August 17, 2026. Screengrab via Youtube.

A four-hour meeting which took place on Monday between Netanyahu, President Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner and Gaza Board of Peace representative Nickolay Mladenov produced what Israeli officials have described as being important understandings regarding Gaza. According to reports, the US came to accept Israel’s principal security condition that there would be no significant Israeli withdrawal from the Yellow Line without Hamas first being disarmed and Gaza being demilitarized.  Israeli freedom of action against any immediate threats emanating from Gaza would also be maintained, and complete disarmament of the Gaza Strip, particularly the removal of all heavy weapons, would be completed prior to any reconstruction in Gaza taking place. The Prime Minister’s Office described the discussions as having been “in-depth and constructive,” and noted that Netanyahu also agreed to establish two separate task forces, one which would deal with Gaza’s demilitarization and the other would deal with Gazan civilian issues.

Outwardly, the agreements appear to indicate the US came to accept all of Israel’s security concerns.  Yet, the context of building US pressure on Israel in the days leading up to this meeting might indicate reasons for Jerusalem maintaining some cautious in its optimism. Indeed, Washington has been pressing the advancement of a political plan designed with the coordination of Hamas while requiring Israel to move toward simultaneous withdrawals, even as the same demands which Washington appears to have adopted have previously been ignored.

Nonetheless, Kushner has sought to reassure Israel that their fundamental security concerns have been taken seriously. Following his meeting with Netanyahu, Kushner also described the conversation as having been a “very, very good meeting”. He additionally emphasized that Gaza would not be rebuilt before being demilitarized. He went on to state that, “We will not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until the demilitarization occurs,” and that “we’re also not going to restrict Israel’s right to defend itself if there are any imminent threats.”

Kushner also proposed a relatively short timetable for Hamas to demonstrate its sincerity in fulfilling the agreed upon terms of the current iteration of the Gaza deal. He indicated that progress could begin with weapons removal within 30 days, and tunnels could begin to be filled during the subsequent 60 to 90 days, stating that “we’re going to give them a chance to perform.”  The terms of this timetable acknowledges the fundamental problem with treating Hamas as an ordinary political negotiating partner rather than as the terrorist savages which it has demonstrated itself to be. Notably, Kushner stressed that Hamas would be judged by its actions rather than its words while stating that “it’s very, very hard to trust a terrorist organization that committed these terrible atrocities.”  Indeed, this very fact has been fairly raised by many as a point of strong criticism for the US to have actually raised Hamas’ diplomatic status by both allowing them a seat at the negotiating table and having also been granted a meeting with Trump’s envoy.

Nonetheless, Kushner’s stated skepticism of working with a terror organization as a negotiating partner was echoed even stronger by Israel’s stated position.  As reported by an Israeli political source, “it was agreed that there would be no withdrawal without Hamas disarming.” Hamas will surrender its weapons for destruction outside of the Gaza Strip under the supervision of U.S. Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, while the IDF would retain freedom of action against threats, including targeted strikes on Hamas’s Nukhba members. Netanyahu reportedly clarified with Kushner that the IDF would not retreat from along the Yellow Line until Hamas’s weapons had been destroyed.

Yet the reported territorial developments demonstrate why the negotiations are not simply a theoretical exercise. In recent months, while waiting for Hamas to be disarmed, Israel reportedly expanded its effective control of Gaza westward beyond the original Yellow Line, creating what has been described as the Orange Line, thereby bringing more than 60% of Gaza under Israeli control. Israel National News has subsequently reported that Israel had withdrawn from the Orange Line in recent weeks and returned to the original Yellow Line in accordance with requests from Pres. Trump.  This reduced Israel’s control back to approximately 53% of Gaza, offering Hamas what was clearly an Israeli concession towards the recent negotiations with Hamas.

Additionally, Israeli forces have reportedly been instructed not to expand beyond the Yellow Line and instead to absurdly document Hamas violations of its ceasefire obligations. The relinquishing of territory for nothing has been a recurring theme forced on Israel over the past nearly years in the war with Hamas, and the last time Israel was forced to accept such a request from the US was in the rollout of last October’s 20-Point Plan, which was itself intended to be the basis on which Hamas would be subsequently disarmed.  Now a new retreat has been implemented for the same outcome over the next few months.  Hence, the issue at hand is therefore not merely about this latest Israeli retreat, but whether Hamas will actually be disarmed after Israel has been forced to relinquish territory won at significant costs to the terrorists once again for the same elusive prize of it being disarmed.  As one Israeli official put it, the central test will be whether Hamas “actually gives up its weapons.”

The timing makes these proposals all the more politically sensitive, and this was made clear by Netanyahu’s reported statement that advancing the plan was “problematic” due to the approaching elections which introduces an important caveat to the negotiations which can easily be obscured by focusing on descriptions of the “constructive” outcomes. Indeed, Israel’s current government is not operating in a political vacuum, but in fact it stands in a rather precarious position.  Any withdrawal, concession or change in its Gaza policy carries with it political implications which will in turn be judged by an Israeli electorate for whom security remains absolute. Netanyahu therefore has to consider not only whether the proposed arrangements are acceptable to Washington, but also how they might come to be regarded by the Israeli electorate during the height of an election season.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s gave voice to this concern when he himself criticized Kushner’s recent meeting with Hamas even as he offered praise for Netanyahu’s “resolute stance” during Kushner’s meeting with the Prime Minister.  Smotrich went on to fairly note that the goal of destroying Hamas was also “incompatible with conducting negotiations with Hamas leaders, who should not be alive at all.”  Smotrich also emphasized that Israel’s objectives remain incomplete while also advocating for full Israeli control of Gaza coincident with the establishment of Israeli communities there.

Nonetheless, despite Smotrich’s criticisms, reports following the Kushner-Netanyahu meeting have gone a long way towards trying to reverse impressions from earlier reports of US pressure from Kushner on Nentayahu regarding developments in the Gaza negotiations.  Indeed, statements from Washington and Jerusalem are suggesting that the positions of these two allies regarding Gaza are not as divided as some recent accounts have have us believe. President Isaac Herzog stated that he was “impressed that Israel’s security interests are an important and central element” of the plan.  Ambassador Mike Huckabee described the discussions as “intense and thoughtful, but respectful” and rejected reports of any fundamental U.S.-Israel rift, describing such reports as “simply fake news” and “invented out of thin air.”

Yet, this is precisely where the approaching Israeli elections might reasonably raise a larger question. If Washington is currently accepting Netanyahu’s insistence that Hamas must disarm before Israel makes further significant withdrawals, how durable might that position be following the coming elections? Netanyahu’s own description was that the plan was “problematic” because of the timing of the elections, which in turn suggests that the political circumstances surrounding the negotiations remains to be material.  Hence, once the elections have come and gone, the relevant political constraints will have simultaneously changed, and with it, might the calculations of both the Israeli government and the US administration have change as well?

That possibility provides a rationale for cautious optimism regarding Washington’s change of heart, and even more specifically that of Kushner who was reported to be intent upon having Jerusalem adopt Washington’s proposed sequencing, rather than the other way around, even while the current discussions are being described as constructive. If the US is willing to accept “no withdrawal without Hamas disarming” now, Israel must still ask whether Washington will maintain precisely the same position once the Israeli electoral process is over and pressure to advance the broader Gaza plan can be brought to bear without the same immediate political considerations being present.  Still, the timeline, as described currently, is quite short, with the entire process being expected to be completed in three to four months, and the Israeli elections being about two months off.  Nonetheless, Washington’s stated timelines over the past year since the 20-Point plan was first adopted have been quite fudgeable, so we will see if Kushner’s stated three month timeline for Hamas to be disarmed proves to be more firm than any of the many missed deadlines which spanned over the past year.