US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, returned to Israel on Monday, as mediators face a new obstacle in their efforts to advance negotiations on the fragile Gaza ceasefire deal to the next and more complex phase.

Key sticking points remain unresolved, including Hamas’s disarmament, the reconstruction and future governance of Gaza, and the deployment of an international security force to the territory.

Without a timeline for the discussions, which are likely to require significant concessions from both Israel and Hamas, there are doubts that any progress can be achieved.

Another challenge has emerged recently, involving scores of Hamas fighters believed to be in tunnels beneath the southern city of Rafah behind the so-called “Yellow Line”, which marks the area under Israeli control.

Last week, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said an amnesty could be offered for fighters who laid down their arms, and that this could be a “model” for what Washington hoped to apply in the rest of Gaza.

Witkoff said 200 fighters were trapped, although this number has not been confirmed.

According to media reports, Kushner and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, discussed the issue during a meeting in Jerusalem on Monday.

Hamas has previously said the fighters will not surrender and demanded that they are given safe passage, which has so far been rejected by Israel.

An Israeli government spokeswoman said Netanyahu and Kushner had “discussed phase one, which we are currently still in, to bring our remaining hostages, and the future of phase two of this plan, which includes the disarming of Hamas, demilitarising Gaza, and ensuring Hamas will have no role in the future of Gaza ever again”.

The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Since then, more than 69,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures the UN considers reliable.

The first phase of the ceasefire, which came into force last month, focused on halting the war, returning all hostages, and securing a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Twenty living hostages and the remains of 24 deceased captives have been released, with four bodies remaining in Gaza.

In return, Israel has freed 250 Palestinian prisoners from its jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza who were being held without charge or trial. It has also handed over the remains of 315 Palestinians from Gaza.

Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the truce, with Israel saying Hamas has deliberately delayed the return of the remains of hostages and Hamas saying that Israel has killed at least 240 Palestinians and is restricting the entry of aid supplies.

Hamas has previously rejected disarmament, saying it would only do so once a Palestinian state has been established. Israel refuses any involvement in the governance of Gaza by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which is the body that governs parts of the occupied West Bank. Countries are reluctant to commit troops to the multinational force without clear goals, concerned that their soldiers might end up confronting fighters from Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

The Israeli military currently occupies 53% of Gaza’s territory and is expected to withdraw further in the next stage of the plan.

With no indication of imminent advances in the negotiations, a de-facto partition of Gaza between the area controlled by Israel and another ruled by Hamas was increasingly likely, sources told the Reuters news agency, with talks about reconstruction apparently likely to be limited to the Israel-controlled territory.

Arab countries have already expressed concerns that the current separation could become a permanent partition of Gaza.

The Trump plan does not include a pathway to Palestinian statehood – a concept which Israel rejects.

The Israeli military says it has identified a body handed over from Gaza as that of Israeli-Argentinian Lior Rudaeff.

The 61-year-old was killed while attempting to defend Nir Yitzhak kibbutz during the Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and his body was taken to Gaza by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) armed group, the military said.

PIJ said the body was found on Friday in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Hamas has now returned all 20 living hostages and 23 out of 28 deceased hostages under the first phase of a ceasefire deal that started on 10 October. Four of the five dead hostages still in Gaza are Israelis and one is Thai.

Israel has criticised Hamas for not yet returning all the bodies. Hamas says it is hard to find them under rubble.

PIJ is an armed group allied with Hamas. It took part in the 7 October attack and previously held some Israeli hostages.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group, welcomed the return.

“Lior’s return provides some measure of comfort to a family that has lived with agonising uncertainty and doubt for over two years,” it said in a statement. “We will not rest until the last hostage is brought home.”

During the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in its jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

Israel has also handed over the bodies of 300 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of the 20 Israeli hostages returned by Hamas, along with those of three foreign hostages – one of them Thai, one Nepalese and one Tanzanian.

The parties also agreed to an increase of aid to the Gaza Strip, a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a halt to fighting, although violence has flared up as both sides accused one another of breaching the deal.

Israel launched air strikes after accusing Hamas fighters of killing two of its soldiers on 19 October and of killing another soldier on 28 October. Hamas said it was unaware of clashes in the area of the first incident and had no connection to the second attack.

Israeli military actions have killed at least 241 people since the start of the ceasefire, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage. All but one of the dead hostages still in Gaza were abducted in the attack.

At least 69,169 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, the health ministry reported.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : In a stunning act of political defiance, Israel’s hard-line cabinet effectively nullified Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan by passing a resolution that authorized the expansion of settlements into the West Bank and renewed military operations even as the peace framework was being finalized. The move blindsided Washington’s diplomatic team, particularly Vice President J. D. Vance, who was in Tel Aviv precisely to secure Israel’s commitment to compliance. According to U.S. officials cited by Reuters and Haaretz, the vice president regarded the Israeli resolution as a deliberate breach of trust and a personal affront, describing it privately as an insult delivered “at the highest level.”
Initially, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government appeared cautiously supportive. Yet within weeks, domestic political pressures and far-right factions within his coalition began to dismantle that fragile understanding.
For regional observers, the timing was no accident. Analysts from Al Jazeera and Le Monde noted that Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc viewed the Gaza Peace Plan as a strategic threat — a framework that could limit Israel’s military freedom and restore international legitimacy to the idea of Palestinian statehood. By reigniting combat operations and approving annexation in the West Bank, Israel’s leadership seemed intent on pre-empting any diplomatic arrangement that might constrain its territorial ambitions.
Trump’s administration had offered Israel extensive security guarantees, economic incentives, and enhanced defense cooperation in exchange for compliance. The vice president’s visit was meant to formalize these commitments. Instead, it concluded in frustration, leaving Washington’s credibility as an honest peace broker hanging in the balance. The rupture was more than symbolic; it revealed the widening gap between an American administration seeking stability and an Israeli government increasingly driven by nationalist ideology.
This humanitarian devastation is not an unintended consequence but a calculated strategy. Israeli hardliners argue that prolonged economic collapse will weaken militant networks and deter future uprisings. History, however, teaches the opposite: despair breeds resistance. A society stripped of dignity and survival cannot be pacified through starvation. No peace plan can take root amid hunger, displacement, and grief.
For the United States, this crisis poses an excruciating dilemma. For decades, the U.S.–Israel partnership has rested on three pillars — security cooperation, political alignment, and shared democratic ideals. But when an ally openly defies a sitting American vice president and undermines a peace framework painstakingly negotiated by Washington, those foundations begin to crumble. According to Defense News, the United States currently provides Israel with roughly $3.8 billion in annual military aid, most of it unconditional. That policy is now facing bipartisan scrutiny in Congress. Several senators have proposed conditioning aid on measurable improvements in civilian protection, echoing growing public sentiment that America must not bankroll violations of humanitarian law. A Pew Research poll conducted in September 2025 found that sixty-one percent of Americans favor temporarily suspending arms transfers to compel a cease-fire.
Across the Middle East, the shockwaves have been immediate. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt — all early supporters of Trump’s peace initiative — condemned Israel’s annexation vote as an act of deliberate sabotage. Turkey and Iran warned that continued aggression could trigger regional retaliation, language that has raised fears of a broader conflagration. Analysts point out that these countries, along with Pakistan, now possess credible deterrent and precision-strike capabilities that could drastically alter Israel’s strategic calculus if the United States withdraws its protective shield.
Even without direct confrontation, the diplomatic cost for Israel is mounting. The European Union has suspended preferential trade talks, and the U.N. General Assembly has called an emergency session to debate sanctions related to settlement expansion. For the first time in decades, Israel finds itself not only at odds with its adversaries but estranged from its oldest allies.
The tragedy is that Israel’s current trajectory mirrors the mistakes of history. Nations that have endured persecution and suffering should understand, more than any others, the moral necessity of restraint. Post-war Germany and Japan, once militaristic powers, rebuilt themselves into peaceful, prosperous democracies by renouncing aggression and embracing accountability. Their transformation stands as proof that security arises not from domination but from legitimacy and trust. Israel, endowed with immense scientific talent, economic vitality, and a globally connected diaspora, could follow a similar path — if its leadership chose coexistence over conquest.
Instead, its current defiance threatens to turn strength into isolation. The illusion of invincibility can blind a nation to its own vulnerabilities. True power lies not in the ability to destroy but in the capacity to reconcile. A country surrounded by hostility cannot ensure its safety through endless wars; it must seek durable peace through justice and empathy.
The immediate task now is to restore U.S.–Israeli trust and revive the 21-point peace roadmap before the window for diplomacy closes completely. That will require a verifiable halt to annexation, unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza, a phased prisoner exchange, and credible international guarantees for demilitarization and reconstruction. Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey must act as guarantors, while the United States and European Union provide financial and institutional support for rebuilding. Without such coordinated engagement, the Middle East risks descending into yet another prolonged and destabilizing conflict.
Israel’s defiance may appear, to some, as a show of resolve. In truth, it reveals fragility — a dependence on foreign backing, on perpetual mobilization, and on the dangerous illusion that peace can be achieved through dominance. If Washington rediscovers its moral compass and conditions its support on accountability and restraint, it can still salvage both its peace plan and its reputation as a global arbiter of justice. But if this spiral continues, the United States may one day realize that by shielding an ally from responsibility, it has imperiled not only Israel’s survival but also America’s credibility as the world’s champion of peace.