US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is planning to visit Israel next week for talks on the situation in Gaza, Axios reported on Thursday.
US Vice President JD Vance, Jared Kushner, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio look on as US President Donald Trump holds up a resolution document that he signed during the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on February 19.(photo credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)What is the Board of Peace?›Who will Kushner meet regarding Gaza peace talks?›What role is Donald Trump playing in this visit?›Why is Jared Kushner traveling to Israel next week?›
AUGUST 13, 2026 23:19Updated: AUGUST 14, 2026 07:22
Jared Kushner, Special Envoy for Peace and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, may visit Israel and other regional countries next week to discuss the situation in Gaza, a Board of Peace official confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Friday morning.
“In Israel, we will continue the constructive conversations that we are having on how to advance the President’s historic Comprehensive 20-Point Peace Plan,” the BoP official said. “The United States and Israel agree on the end state, which is a demilitarized Hamas. We will hear the concerns that have been raised and talk about next steps. What is critical is that we both agree on the desired outcome and are finding ways to accelerate progress.”
The official also said that Kushner would be accompanied by former British prime minister Tony Blair and Nickolay Mladenov, the head of the Gaza Board of Peace.
The plans were reported earlier by Axios, which also said that Kushner was planning to meet mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey as well next week in Cairo.
“We agree with the Israelis on the goal of disarming Hamas but they have expressed concerns which are valid and we have been working through them,” a source told Reuters, asking not to be identified.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir presents US CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper with a gift during a meeting with senior IDF commanders on August 10, 2026. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
The goal of a Kushner visit to Israel will be to “find a pathway to move forward with implementation of the 20 point plan” that Trump put forward for Gaza in late 2025, the source added.
He is also expected to meet with mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey in Cairo, a source told Axios.
This trip would be the first time Kushner has visited Israel since January, coming as the Board of Peace is trying to move towards the next phase of the Gaza peace plan.
CENTCOM Commander Cooper visits Israel
CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper visited Israel on Monday and spoke to senior IDF commanders about US-Israeli military relations and the war with Iran.
Cpt.Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command (CENTCOM) told the Post that reports that Cooper said during his visit to Israel that he had pushed for renewed strikes against Iran were untrue.
Hawkins told the Post that claims that Cooper had pushed for a resumption of the conflict against Iran were “an outright fabrication. It’s not true at all.”
Both attacks came in response to the incident in which three IDF soldiers were seriously wounded over the weekend.
Explosion of infrastructure in southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side. August 10, 2026.(photo credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)ByMIRIAM SELA-EITAMUpdated: The IDF killed senior Hezbollah commander Abu Hassan Alaa during weekend strikes in the Deir ez-Zahrani area in southern Lebanon, the military announced on Sunday morning.
Alaa served as a commander in Hezbollah’s Bader Unit and had carried out attacks on IDF soldiers operating in the region.
The military noted that its strikes came alongside those from over the weekend at Hezbollah’s headquarters in the Ansar area, in which Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, a battalion commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force unit, was killed.
However, the IDF noted on Saturday that, at the time of the strike, Hassan’s family was with him inside the headquarters.
IDF soldiers operate in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah terrorists, published March 20, 2026. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
IDF, PMO says military was unaware of civilians in Hezbollah HQ during strike
“It should be emphasized that the family members were not the target of the strike,” the IDF wrote in a statement. “The strike was specifically directed at Hassan, who was a lawful target under international law.”
“The terrorist used his family as human shields, hiding alongside them inside the military headquarters.”
The Prime Minister’s Office said that it had been unaware that Hezbollah put civilians in the Hezbollah military compound.
“Only later did the IDF learn that Hezbollah deliberately put civilians in that military compound. Hezbollah is willing to do anything, including using its own civilians as human shields, to falsely accuse Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, which the IDF clearly did not.”
Shoshana Baker and Corinne Baum contributed to this report.
Reported nighttime attacks come day after three soldiers were seriously injured by Hezbollah drone; IDF names second senior Hezbollah commander killed in Saturday strikes
Heavy machinery, first aid responders and residents search the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighborhood in the southern Lebanese village of Deir al-Zahrani on August 15, 2026. (Abbas FAKIH/AFP)
Lebanese media reported Israeli airstrikes in the Ali Taher Ridge in southern Lebanon Saturday overnight, a day after three Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded by an explosive drone launched by Hezbollah.
The reported strikes came hours after residents of the Upper Galilee were notified by local authorities that explosions were expected to be heard due to IDF activity in Lebanon.
With fighting threatening to ramp up in Lebanon and in Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a Sunday morning post on X: “No score on any front will remain unsettled.”
He added: “We will forcefully defend our soldiers and citizens.”
His comments come after overnight reports of strikes in southern Lebanon, following an attack on troops early Saturday in which three soldiers were wounded. Israel has not confirmed the reports.
Earlier Israeli strikes killed 11 in Lebanon, according to local authorities on Saturday, including three children and two women.
On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander in an airstrike in the southern Lebanon town of Deir al-Zahrani the previous day. It said the Saturday morning strike on Ali Muhammad Fakhr al-Din came in response to a Hezbollah explosive drone attack in the predawn hours Saturday that seriously wounded three soldiers.
Lebanese media reported that the Deir al-Zahrani strike on Saturday morning killed two people.
Al-Din, also known as Abu Hassan Alaa, was identified by the IDF as a “senior commander” in Hezbollah’s Badr regional division. The regional unit is tasked with the area north of the Litani River. The IDF said that as part of his role, Hassan Alaa took part in numerous attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
The statement from the IDF did not address the claims of overnight strikes in southern Lebanon.
The army had announced previously that among those killed Saturday was Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, a battalion commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, who was hit in a strike in the town of Ansar.
A Lebanese Army checkpoint is placed along the road that leads to the southern Lebanese village of Nabatieh al-Fawqa, on August 15, 2026. (Abbas FAKIH/AFP)
The Israeli strikes drew harsh criticism from Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, who accused Israel of sending a “clear message” ahead of the next round of US-sponsored negotiations between the countries.
The IDF said three of its troops operating in the area of the Ali Taher Ridge were seriously wounded Friday overnight after being hit by an explosive drone launched by Hezbollah around 2:30 a.m. The drone exploded near soldiers of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, seriously wounding an officer and two soldiers, all three of whom were taken to a hospital for treatment.
In a rare English-language statement published on Shabbat, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said “Hezbollah violated the ceasefire in Lebanon by attacking our soldiers in the security zone, which protects Israeli communities just across the border.”
“The IDF responded by striking the Hezbollah terror headquarters which ordered the attack,” the PMO said. “Only later did the IDF learn that Hezbollah deliberately put civilians in that military compound,” the statement added, acknowledging the civilian casualties.
The military also confirmed that women and children had been killed and said they were family members of the senior Hezbollah commander it targeted.
“The headquarters was used by the Hezbollah terror organization to command its activities in the area,” the military said.
Aoun condemned what he called the “ongoing Israeli attacks” on southern Lebanon and “repeated violations of the framework agreement” and international law protecting civilians, according to a statement from his office.
He said the strikes, including the attack in Ansar, amounted to a “clear message on the negotiation process,” but did not explicitly threaten to pull out of them.
This picture taken in the southern Lebanese coastal city of Sidon shows lines of cars as people flee their villages in the south on August 15, 2026. (Mahmoud ZAYYAT/AFP)
The comments came ahead of the next round of US-sponsored talks, expected to take place in Rome early next month.
Israeli officials cautioned Lebanon against using the violence as an excuse to pull out of talks and urged a deeper engagement.
Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, who heads Israel’s negotiating team in the Lebanon talks, said: “If the Lebanese government uses this incident as a pretext to delay or discontinue peace talks, it would hand a tactical victory to the enemies of peace. Derailing the talks is precisely what Hezbollah is trying to achieve.”
Netanyahu spokesman Doron Spielman told AFP that Israel wanted new and more ambitious US-brokered talks with Lebanon following Saturday’s deadly attacks, which he asserted “should jumpstart the talks and make them much more serious, not do the opposite.”
“And I think it will. It will hopefully move these talks along because the enemy here is clear and the enemy is Hezbollah,” Spielman said. “We believe in the agreement. We very much hope that the Lebanese Armed Forces are going to be able to step into the foray, and together we’re going to remove Hezbollah from the picture.”
Israel and Lebanon announced a US-mediated framework agreement on June 26, six days after a precarious truce between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect.
The framework set out a plan for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon in exchange for Hezbollah’s disarmament and envisioned steps toward an eventual peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, which technically remain in a state of war. Hezbollah was not a party to the agreement and has rejected calls for it to disarm.
Hezbollah said the Israeli strikes would be met with an “appropriate” response, urging authorities to halt “humiliating” negotiations with Israel.
