US issues Hamas Gaza construction ultimatum

President Donald Trump’s special peace envoy Jared Kushner has said the militant group must disarm before the Palestinian enclave can be rebuilt

The US would not allow the reconstruction of Gaza until the Palestinian enclave is fully demilitarized, President Donald Trump’s peace envoy Jared Kushner said following meetings with Hamas officials and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, held a rare in-person meeting with Hamas officials in Cairo on Sunday and spoke with Netanyahu the following day. According to the envoy, Hamas reaffirmed its support for Trump’s peace plan and committed to “giving up their weapons.”

“Time will tell whether that’s going to be implemented,” Kushner told Fox News’ Trey Yingst.

“We have a plan to rebuild Gaza, but we will not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until the demilitarization occurs,” Kushner said. “Nobody wants to put more money into a place that’s gone on for so long if it’s just going to be taken over by terrorists or blown up again,” he added.

Kushner said the US was “not going to restrict Israel’s right to defend itself if there are any imminent threats.”

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Netanyahu rejected Trump’s 15-point peace plan unveiled in July, saying last week that the Israeli army would not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas completely disarms. Hamas officials, however, insisted that an Israeli withdrawal and an end to “all forms of aggression” were a “fundamental prerequisite” for the group’s disarmament.

The UN and human rights groups, both in Israel and abroad, have accused Israel of systematically targeting civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, including high-rise buildings, during its war with Hamas. More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, and nearly all of the densely populated enclave’s pre-war population of 2 million have been displaced. Far-right Israeli politicians have argued that the Palestinian population should be driven out and Gaza resettled by Israelis.

Israel has denied deliberately targeting civilians and blamed Hamas for the destruction in Gaza.

At least 92% of Gaza’s housing units were either fully destroyed or damaged between October 2023 and October 2025, according to the UN. The organization’s special rapporteur on housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, described the devastation as domicide, defined as “the widespread or systematic destruction of housing and civilian infrastructure essential to the survival of a population.”

Last year, Trump unveiled a plan to redevelop Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” and floated the idea of removing Palestinians and resettling them elsewhere. The proposal was promptly rejected by Arab states, the EU, and the UN.