A Jared Kushner Middle East trip focused on Gaza is scheduled for next week, as the Trump administration attempts to rescue an agreement that has run headlong into resistance from Israel.

Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and lead negotiator, will travel alongside senior figures from the Board of Peace — the body Trump established to supervise the fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Who Is Going and Where

According to an official with the Board of Peace, the delegation arriving in Israel on Sunday will include Kushner, board high representative Nickolay Mladenov, and executive board member Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.

From Israel the group will continue to Cairo. The Egyptian capital has hosted several months of meetings involving a Palestinian technocratic body slated to take administrative control of Gaza under the US-brokered ceasefire arrangement.

The official, speaking anonymously because trip details remain unfinalised, said the visit is intended to demonstrate the commitment of Trump and the Board of Peace to seeing peace, prosperity and sustainable security take hold in a demilitarised Gaza — one where Hamas has relinquished control, clearing the way for reconstruction of a territory left devastated by the war.

The trip was first reported by Axios.

The Deal That Stalled

The diplomatic urgency stems from a recent breakdown.

Trump announced an agreement under which Hamas would disarm and Israeli forces would withdraw from the territory. Hamas accepted the terms and agreed to decommission its weapons.

Israel did not.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said in recent days that Israeli forces will not pull back until Hamas has disarmed completely — a sequencing demand that effectively reverses the structure of the deal as announced.

That rejection amounts to a rare instance of open friction between Israel and the Trump administration, two governments that have generally presented a unified position throughout the conflict.

The Sequencing Problem

The disagreement is not really about whether Hamas disarms. Both sides have publicly accepted that outcome. It is about order and verification.

A phased arrangement requires each party to take a risk before seeing the other’s compliance. Israel withdrawing before disarmament is complete means accepting that an armed group may remain in territory it has vacated. Hamas disarming before withdrawal means surrendering leverage while forces are still present.

Neither position is unreasonable from within its own logic, which is precisely why the impasse is difficult to break through statements alone. Some independently verifiable mechanism is usually required — and building one is slow work.

What Was Already Achieved

The stalled agreement was built on an October ceasefire that produced real results.

That earlier deal halted major military operations and secured the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza.

Progress on other fronts, however, has largely stopped. Governance arrangements, reconstruction funding, security guarantees and the disarmament question have all proved harder to resolve than the cessation of active fighting.

The Cairo Track

The meetings taking place in Egypt may be the most consequential element of next week’s itinerary, even if they attract less attention.

A Palestinian technocratic body has been working for months toward assuming control of Gaza. Technocratic here signals administrators rather than politicians — an attempt to establish functional governance without resolving the factional questions that have blocked Palestinian unity for years.

Whether such a body can command sufficient legitimacy on the ground is untested. But it represents the practical answer to a question the ceasefire framework must eventually address: if Hamas cedes control, who governs?

Blair’s Role

Tony Blair’s presence on the executive board is a notable feature of this structure.

His long involvement in Middle East diplomacy following his premiership gives him institutional familiarity with the file, along with a complicated reputation across the region shaped by his role in the Iraq war.

The Board of Peace itself is an unusual construct — an internationally staffed oversight body created to supervise an agreement rather than a permanent institution with independent authority. Its influence depends almost entirely on the willingness of the parties to work through it.

What Success Would Look Like

The trip is unlikely to produce a signed breakthrough. Delegations of this composition typically test positions rather than conclude them.

Three realistic outcomes are worth watching for:

• Movement on sequencing, such as agreement on phased withdrawal tied to verified disarmament milestones
• Progress on the Cairo governance track, giving the technocratic body a clearer mandate and timeline
• Public reaffirmation from Israel that the framework remains alive, even with conditions attached

The Underlying Difficulty

Every element of this framework depends on the others. Reconstruction requires security. Security requires disarmament. Disarmament requires a credible alternative authority. That authority requires legitimacy and funding, both of which depend on reconstruction beginning.

Breaking into that circle is what the delegation is flying out to attempt. Whether Kushner, Mladenov and Blair can find the entry point where months of prior effort have not is the question next week will begin to answer.