Tony Blair and Jared Kushner hold rare meeting with Hamas leader

Sir Tony Blair and Jared Kushner held a rare meeting with the leaders of Hamas as negotiations over peace plans in the region continue to stall.

The former Prime Minister and White House envoy met Khalil al-Hayya in Cairo in an attempt to advance the US President's Gaza peace plan.

According to sources, Sir Tony, Mr Kushner and Board of Peace high representative, Nickolay Mladenov, are attempting to salvage the peace deal struck in October to end the war and rebuild the much-destroyed Palestinian territory.

Israel has resumed airstrikes in the past few days after scaling back its attacks in the enclave earlier this month.

In a two-hour meeting, Hamas officials insisted they were committed to disarming and handing over control in Gaza to a Palestinian technocratic government, in line with the plan’s second phase.

A source said: "Kushner stressed to Hamas leaders that the bar is high because the Israeli side doesn’t trust them to actually disarm.

"Kushner told them there is no room for negotiations on the disarmament, but if they show real steps the US will do its best to make sure Israel takes steps of its own."

Hamas has previously rejected the word "disarmament", instead saying it has agreed to hand over its weapons to be stored under the control of a US-backed Palestinian technocratic government.

Hamas, which was declared a terrorist organisation in 2021 in the UK by then-Home Secretary Priti Patel, has governed Gaza since 2007.

The group's 1988 founding charter called for the destruction of Israel.

The group's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, carried out the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, where Hamas infiltrated homes, targeted Israelis en masse, and took civilians and soldiers as hostages back into Gaza.

Israeli figures show 1,200 people were killed in the October 7 attack on Israel, while the IDF's retaliatory offensive killed more than 73,000 people, according to Gazan health authorities.

Despite the devastation caused by Israel's Gaza offensive, Mr Hayya said in a December 2025 speech that "the resistance" had shown "the enemy can be defeated" and that the myth of Israeli "strategic deterrence" had been shattered.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• Israel rejects 15-point peace plan for Gaza outlined by Donald Trump's Board of Peace
• IDF surrounds last Christian town in West Bank as Israeli settlers clash with local population
  
• Benjamin Netanyahu mocks the UK as 'the Islamic Republic of Britain'

During his meeting, Mr Kushner also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is coming under increasing pressure both domestically and internationally after rejecting the new 15-point, US-backed road map.

The Prime Minister's Likud party, which is continuing to struggle in the polls ahead of an October 27 national election, accused the Arab countries of wanting to topple Netanyahu so his political rivals in Israel will "give them everything that they want".

Meanwhile, Israel has come under international condemnation after Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir publicly advocated killing "30 to 40" people in Gaza each night.

Ben-Gvir, who forms part of Netanyahu's coalition cabinet, told an Israeli podcast: "I think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night.

"Not just those who pose an immediate threat, there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people."

Since the US-mediated ceasefire reached in October 2025, more than 1,250 people have been killed in the Israeli attacks, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials.

Hamas has not disclosed the number of its fighters killed, while four Israeli soldiers have been killed in this time in Gaza.

Israeli troops have occupied and depopulated two-thirds of the enclave, leaving nearly all its more than two million residents confined to a tiny strip of land under Hamas control along the coast, most in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.

The Israeli military said its aircraft struck two Islamic Jihad and Hamas militants in Khan Younis and Nuseirat, leaving at least five Palestinians wounded in the strike that hit a tent encampment.

One of those wounded in the strike on Khan Younis in southern Gaza died from their wounds, medics at Nasser Hospital said later.

It comes as Pope Leo issued a desperate plea for an end to violence against Palestinians amid a surge of attacks by militant settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli settlers encircled houses after cutting off water and electricity, in what rights groups have said is a concerted effort to seize more land and further eat into territory where Palestinians aim to establish a state.

The Vatican has long backed the idea of a future Palestinian state, which has been recognised by more than 150 of 193 UN member states as encompassing the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Pope Leo said: "I renew my appeal for an end to the repeated violence against the Palestinian civilian population in the West Bank."