Kushner: Israel acting ‘a little irrational’ on Gaza due to upcoming election

US special envoy Jared Kushner said on Sunday that next month’s Knesset election has made Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government act “a little irrational” when it comes to Gaza, amid Israel’s rejection of the Board of Peace’s proposal to disarm Hamas and ongoing strikes on the enclave.

“I think we agree with the Israelis on the end state for Gaza,” Kushner said at a press appearance during a visit to Kyiv, where he was taking part in negotiations over the war in Ukraine.

“They just have crazy elections, and that makes them a little irrational in certain regards,” he added.

The US has been trying to advance the Board of Peace’s plan to decommission the weapons of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza, to be paired with an Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.

However, Israel’s opposition to the plan has led to its stalling, and the terror group is unlikely to disarm before the Knesset vote on October 27.

Amid the opposition, Defense Minister Israel Katz and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have both called for plans to facilitate the emigration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, drawing criticism from Muslim countries, who said such plans contradict the “firm rejection of forced displacement,” in the US-backed October 2025 peace plan for Gaza.

Katz said last week Israel was prepared to facilitate departures by land, sea and air, but acknowledged that no countries were currently willing to absorb Gazans on the scale envisioned.

Meanwhile, Hamas-run media outlets in Gaza reported Sunday that an 8-year-old girl was killed and several people were wounded in an IDF strike on a vehicle in the al-Nasr neighborhood of Gaza City.

Mohamed Abu Selmia, head of Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s largest medical facility, said the airstrike hit a vehicle in western Gaza City, killing Yusuf Aqila and his daughter, Wafaa, and wounding six others.

The military announced Monday that the Gaza City strike had targeted Aqila, whom it identified as a company commander in Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force.

The military said Aqila was targeted because he had been advancing attacks on troops and Israeli civilians, as well as attempting to restore Hamas capabilities “in a systematic violation of the ceasefire.”

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من مكان #القصف الإسرائيلي لسيارة في منطقة النصر غربي مدينة غزة pic.twitter.com/tZmoUeLVNf

— غزة الآن – Gaza Now (@nowgnna) September 6, 2026

Another strike on Sunday in Gaza City’s Shati camp killed Sabhi Khader al-Hashem al-Batrihi, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad who took part in planting bombs against Israeli troops, the military said.

Also on Monday, the IDF said a separate strike in Gaza last week killed Ahmad Fuad Khalil Khalas, a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force who also planted explosive devices against Israeli troops.

In the past week, at least 14 terror operatives were killed in Israeli strikes in the Strip, including five company commanders in Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force and five Nukhba platoon commanders, according to the military.

Separately, the IDF said Monday morning that it had struck Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip overnight in response to an explosive device that hit a military vehicle a day earlier.

The bomb planted by Hamas that struck an engineering vehicle operating on the Israeli side of the “Yellow Line” in the Strip’s north on Sunday caused no injuries, according to the military. The IDF said the incident was a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement by the Hamas terror organization.”

In response, several Hamas infrastructure sites used by the terror group to advance attacks were struck overnight, the military added.

Despite the ongoing ceasefire, the military has pushed ahead with a campaign to kill every Gaza terrorist who was involved in the October 7, 2023, massacre which sparked the war in the Strip.

Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel on October 7, slaughtering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.

While Israel has acknowledged the campaign and vowed it would continue until the last of those involved are dead, the military has frequently justified the killings in terms of responding to ceasefire violations.