Kushner joins Witkoff for Gaza ceasefire talks as Trump pushes peace plan: ‘Cautiously optimistic’

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has once again stepped into the geopolitical arena, landing in Egypt alongside White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday to secure a ceasefire deal in Gaza. 

The presence of Kushner — who has largely stayed out of Trump’s White House during the president’s second term and holds no official role in the administration after previously serving as a senior advisor to Trump — signifies that the U.S. is ‘serious’ about securing a deal between Hamas and Israel, bringing an end to the two-year war and returning all 48 hostages. 

A White House official told Fox News Digital that Kushner, a ‘major architect of the Abraham Accords,’ is an ‘extremely trusted voice on Middle East policy’ and has been in contact with Witkoff throughout the Israel-Hamas negotiations over the last year.

The official said the White House is ‘grateful’ for his expertise as it attempts to secure a deal and end the war this week, and remains ‘cautiously optimistic’ that an agreement will be reached. 

‘To bring him in now, I think, indicates that, one: the Trump administration is really determined to get some progress here. Two: they’re bringing some pretty serious firepower to make some deals,’ Rebeccah Heinrichs, senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute’s Keystone Defense Initiative, told ‘Fox and Friends’ Wednesday morning. 

‘It’s promising that Jared is there,’ Heinrichs added, noting his prominent role in securing the Abraham Accords during the first Trump administration. 

Reports on Wednesday suggested that the pair intend to remain in Egypt alongside other mediating nations, including Qatar, for as long as it takes to secure a deal. 

Their arrival marked the third day of serious negotiations after Israeli and Hamas officials convened on Monday in the Egyptian coastal resort city of Sharm El Sheikh, located at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. 

The negotiations began after Trump late last month revealed a 20-point peace plan to end the war and return the hostages within a 72-hour window of an agreement being finalized.

Shortly after, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to the terms before Trump began pushing Hamas to respond. 

Hamas appeared to accept the majority of the proposal over the weekend, though it flagged issues with certain elements of the 20-point blueprint, including the swift return of all the hostages, particularly the deceased hostages, some of whom it says are buried under rubble and, therefore, cannot be quickly retrieved. 

Reports also suggested Hamas took issue with the call for it to completely disarm and flagged distrust that Israel would hold up its end of the bargain by ending its military ambitions in the Gaza Strip once all the hostages are returned. 

Security experts have told Fox News Digital that Trump, after months of backing Israel’s aggressive military strategy in the Gaza Strip, is in a unique position to squeeze Netanyahu and force both sides to the negotiating table. 

‘It’s absolutely imperative for Israel’s long-term security and, frankly, for Netanyahu’s political future to keep the U.S. and Trump on side,’ John Hannah, security expert and Randi & Charles Wax senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told Fox News Digital. ‘A flat-out rejection and confrontation with the United States would have been disastrous for Netanyahu as well as for Israel.’

Netanyahu is facing a precarious political front at home with immense frustration by the public over his failure to return the hostages, but also within his own coalition, which sees his negotiating with Hamas as a concession and collapse of his previous stated security aims.