Displaced Palestinians walk past tents and destroyed buildings near the beach front in Gaza City. AFP
“The Prime Minister and Board of Peace had deep and constructive discussions,” the Prime Minister's Office statement reads.
“It was agreed to establish two working groups, one on disarmament and demilitarization of Gaza, which both Israel and the Board of Peace are determined should be prompt and completed before any reconstruction happens in Gaza,” the office says.
“A second working group will focus on sanitation, clean water and other public health issues for the people of Gaza and which also impact the people of Israel,” the statement concludes.
The statement does not elaborate on the composition of the working groups or provide a timeline for their work.
Netanyahu met US President Donald Trump’s top envoy Jared Kushner and Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza on Trump's "Board of Peace." Tony Blair, now a senior Board of Peace official, also attended the meeting, according to a brief readout from the Prime Minister’s Office.
At the same time, a senior Israeli official told AFP Netanyahu agreed on Monday with Kushner that a US general should supervise Hamas's disarmament and maintained that Israel would not pull troops from Gaza until then.
The two sides "agreed that no redeployment or reconstruction would take place in the Gaza Strip before Hamas is disarmed throughout Gaza", a senior Israeli official told AFP.
"It was also agreed that the first step toward the demilitarisation of the Strip would be to require Hamas to hand over its weapons for decommissioning under the supervision of an American general," the official said.
There was no immediate confirmation from the US nor the Board of Peace regarding any agreement. The call for a US general's involvement came after Netanyahu publicly rejected an earlier text by the Board of Peace stating Hamas would hand over its weapons to a nascent Palestinian governing committee.
Kushner met Netanyahu on Monday after holding talks with Hamas leaders, as he tries to revive a Gaza peace plan that Israel has publicly rejected.
The meeting comes two weeks after the Palestinian group endorsed the latest stage of Trump's Gaza plan, which Netanyahu has refused to support, insisting any settlement must ensure the group is "genuinely disarmed."
Kushner—Trump's son-in-law—met Hamas's new leader Khalil al-Hayya in the Egyptian Mediterranean city of El-Alamein on Sunday, sources with knowledge of the discussions told AFP. Kushner demanded that the group verify it is giving up its weapons and renounce any future role in governing the Palestinian territory, the sources said.
A Hamas official said the group told Kushner it was committed to the Gaza plan and wanted pressure applied to Netanyahu.
"Hamas is demanding that the US administration... pressure Netanyahu's government to adhere to and implement the roadmap agreement. Hamas is awaiting the US administration's response regarding Israel's position on the agreement," the Hamas official told AFP.
On Sunday, eight Muslim-majority countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates—whose relationship with Israel is considered by Netanyahu to be a key achievement—condemned Israel's rejection of the Gaza plan in a joint statement.
Israel has continued airstrikes in Gaza despite the October ceasefire, killing at least 1,265 Palestinians since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10. In total, Israel's genocidal war has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
In an interview, Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right national security minister in Netanyahu's cabinet, called for mass killings in Gaza.
"I think targeted eliminations should be carried out in Gaza every night. Take out 30 or 40," Ben Gvir said on a podcast with a former Gaza hostage. "Not only those who endanger you right now. These are people who shouldn't be alive," he said. "I'm paying them a compliment by calling them humans."
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