Board of Peace to compel Israel on Gaza plan: Hamas

GAZA CITY, Aug 17: Hamas said on Sunday that it had asked the US-backed Board of Peace to "compel" Israel to accept a peace plan for Gaza after its leader met with US President Donald Trump's envoy Jared Kushner in Egypt.
Hamas has asked the Board of Peace to "compel" Israel to accept a peace plan for Gaza after its leadership met with US President Donald Trump's envoy Jared Kushner in Cairo.
In a statement, the group called on the Board and mediating countries to "compel the occupation to implement all its obligations under the first phase, end all violations, halt killings and incursions, (and) approve the roadmap for the second phase" of the US-brokered plan.
The Cairo talks, which included Board of Peace High Representative NickolayMladenov, lasted over two hours.
The diplomatic push comes as efforts to transition to the second phase of the 15-point roadmap stall following Israeli rejection, alongside renewed Israeli strikes in Gaza.
Hamas officials detailed Israeli ceasefire violations to Kushner and rejected new steps without prior Israeli agreement.
Kushner affirmed that Donald Trump is committed to advancing the plan and opposes displacement of Palestinians, while emphasising that factional disarmament is a fundamental requirement before political integration or subsequent phases proceed.
According to sources cited by Axiosand Reuters, the Board of Peace requires Hamas to dismantle military infrastructure, permit the deployment of an international stabilisation force, and transfer administrative authority to an independent Palestinian technocratic committee without future Hamas governance roles.
Kushner is expected to travel to Tel Aviv on Monday to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding reciprocal obligations.
Israeli officials have expressed concern over US demands to halt targeted assassinations, while Netanyahu maintains that factional disarmament must precede any Israeli withdrawal.
Following the meeting, Hamas reiterated its formal approval of phase two of the Trump roadmap, stressing priorities including an immediate end to incursions, a full Israeli withdrawal, aid delivery, the launch of the administrative committee, and reconstruction.
Meanwhile, Khalil Al-Hayya, the Hamas chief who met US envoy Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, in Cairo on Sunday, emerged as a pivotal figure in the Palestinian militant group during the Gaza war as Israel killed its other leaders.
Named Hamas' overall leader in July, Hayya narrowly escaped assassination himself in a 2025 Israeli airstrike in Qatar that killed his son and aides.
The Cairo meeting marked Hayya's second with Kushner: in October 2025, he led a Hamas delegation in negotiations with Kushner and US envoy Steve Witkoff, helping to clinch a deal that led to a ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages seized in the Hamas-led attacks on Israel in 2023.
The meetings have marked a departure from Washington's longstanding policy of shunning Hamas, which the US designates as a terrorist group.
Hayya served as part of a five-member council that ran the group from 2024 after Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar - one of the masterminds of the Oct 7, 2023 attacks that ignited the Gaza war.
On his watch, Hamas agreed in July to lay down its weapons under a Trump-backed plan linking its disarmament to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza - a once unimaginable declaration from a group that was pummelled by Israel during the war.
Hamas has 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.
Israel has rejected the plan, which also foresees Gaza being rebuilt, saying it won't withdraw until Hamas is fully disarmed.
Born in the Gaza Strip in 1960, Hayya joined the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement from which Hamas emerged in 1987.
Hayya has been cited as saying the Oct 7 attack had been meant as a limited operation to capture "a number of soldiers" to swap for jailed Palestinians.
"But the Zionist army unit completely collapsed," he said in comments published by the Hamas-linked Palestinian Information Centre in 2024, referring to Israel's military.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in the Oct 7 attack on Israel, and abducted another 251.
Israel's retaliatory offencive killed more than 73,000 people, according to Gazan health authorities.
Despite the devastation caused by Israel's Gaza offencive, 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.�"AGENCIES