Trump’s envoy to the Middle East will enter Gaza as part of an ‘inspection team’ | Donald Trump News

Washington, DC – US President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, announced that he will visit Gaza in the coming days as part of what he called a “monitoring team” that will monitor the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas last week.

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Witkoff said he will visit two Israeli-held areas in Gaza, as part of an upcoming trip to Israel.

“I will be a part of the inspection team in the Netzarim Corridor and also in the Philadelphia Corridor,” said Witkoff. “That’s when you have outside monitors, making sure that people are safe and that no one is armed, and no one has bad motives.”

The Netzarim Corridor separates northern and southern Gaza and has been occupied by Israeli forces since they invaded the Palestinian enclave in late October 2023. The Philadelphi Corridor runs between Southern Gaza and Egypt. Israeli forces took “operational control” of the area in May last year.

The trip will be the ambassador’s first to the Middle East since Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire deal on January 15. Witkoff, a businessman with no prior diplomatic experience, joined the talks in Qatar that led to the agreement.

It will also be Witkoff’s first trip since Trump took office on Monday. Since his inauguration, Trump has said he has no guarantee that a deal will happen. The deal went into effect on Sunday, and a day later, an Israeli sniper killed a child in Rafah, in an incident captured on video.

“We have to make sure that the implementation goes well, because if it goes well, we will go into the second phase, and we will take out a lot of living bodies,” Witkoff said, referring to the Israeli hostages who were being held. Gaza.

“And I think that’s what the president is saying to me and to everyone else who works in the American government on this.”

A three-stage deal

The ceasefire agreement has three sections. Only the implementation of the first phase has started.

For the next six weeks, that phase is meant to see a break in the fighting; the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, including the Netzarim Corridor; and increased aid to the enclave.

Fifteen months of war in Gaza has left the yard full and most of its people gone. The United Nations has repeatedly warned of impending famine in northern Gaza, and its experts have compared Israel’s war tactics to genocide.

In total, at least 47,107 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel killed 1,139 people, and more than 200 were taken hostage.

The first phase of the ceasefire was also meant to see 33 Israeli hostages released from Gaza and about 1,000 Palestinians released from Israeli detention. Three Israeli prisoners and 90 Palestinian prisoners have been released.

Phases two and three have been agreed in principle, but negotiations on details are still ongoing. The second phase is expected to release the remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for a “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza.

That goal would conflict with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promises to maintain permanent security control of Gaza after the war. Right-wing members of Netanyahu’s government have also called for a return to fighting after the conclusion of the first phase.

The details of the third phase are not clear, but it is reported that it includes the multi-year reconstruction plans in Gaza and the return of the bodies of the hostages.

The current agreement does not include agreements on who will govern Gaza following the war.

‘I don’t trust myself’

Witkoff spoke to Fox News a day after Trump told reporters that he had “no confidence” that a deal to end the war would be reached.

“That is not our war. It is their war. But I’m not confident,” Trump told reporters during a photo opportunity at the White House. “I looked at the picture of Gaza. Gaza is like a giant center for house demolitions.”

The US president, whose first term runs from 2017 to 2021, wanted a cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel before his inauguration, promising “hell to pay” if not reached.

It is unclear how Trump would respond if Israel were to renege on the deal.

Trump has tended to be more aligned with Israel’s interests than his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.

Still, the Biden administration pledged “unwavering” support for Israel and refused to use the billions of dollars in military support the US provides to Israel to end the shooting.

Trump and Biden both claimed credit for reaching an agreement by the end of this month.

As he begins his second term, Trump is expected to increase American support for Israel. His administration, for example, is full of pro-Israel hawks, including supporters of illegal Israeli settlements in the consuming West Bank.

Already, he has even reversed Biden-era sanctions on Israeli immigrant groups accused of violence against Palestinians.

Still, Trump vowed to be a global peacemaker and end conflicts abroad as part of his “America First” agenda.

Speaking on Wednesday, Witkoff praised Trump’s “powerful peace” approach as the reason for the cease-fire, while acknowledging that the incoming administration was not involved in the “calculations” that shaped the terms of the deal.

A renewed emphasis on normality

Witkoff also said he hopes to revive the Israeli-Arab efforts led by Trump in his first term, to make Israel less diplomatically isolated.

The so-called Abraham Accords saw Israel establish diplomatic ties with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, but the talks were widely criticized for sidelining Palestinian interests.

Experts also say the future of the Abraham Accords has been thrown into disarray amid regional anger over the war in Gaza.

Still, Witkoff said he believes a long-term, unusual compromise agreement with Saudi Arabia is yet to be reached. He went further, saying that he believed that all countries in the region could “enter” such an agreement.

“My view is that the conditional basis is to facilitate the cessation of hostilities,” Witkoff said. “We needed to make people believe again.”

When asked to specify which other countries he thought would be open to an agreement, Witkoff pointed to Qatar, praising its role as a mediator in the Gaza talks.

Qatar has repeatedly rejected the opportunity to strengthen relations with Israel.