WASHINGTON, DC – President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Gaza in the coming days as part of what he calls a “study mission” to monitor the ceasefire agreement reached last week between Israel and Hamas. Announced.
In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Witkoff said he would tour two Israeli-controlled areas in the Gaza Strip as part of his upcoming trip to Israel.
“I will be part of the inspection team for the Netzarim Corridor and the Philadelphia Corridor,” Witkoff said. “We have outside supervisors there to make sure people are safe and make sure that people who come in are unarmed and there are no malicious people.”
The Netzarim Corridor separates the north and south of Gaza and has been occupied by Israeli forces since they invaded the Palestinian enclave in late October 2023. The Philadelphia Corridor runs between southern Gaza and Egypt. The Israeli military assumed “operational control” of the area in May last year.
This will be the envoy’s first visit to the Middle East since Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire agreement on January 15. Witkoff, a businessman with no diplomatic experience, had previously participated in the negotiations in Qatar that led to the deal.
It will be Witkoff’s first visit since President Trump took office on Monday. Trump has said since taking office that he had little confidence the deal would hold. The agreement came into effect on Sunday, a day after an Israeli sniper was caught on video killing a child in Rafah.
“We have to make sure it goes well, because if it goes well, we’ll get into the second phase and get more living bodies out,” Witkoff said of prisoners being held in Israel. Gaza.
“And I think that’s the president’s instruction to me and everyone else working on this issue in the American government.”
3 stage trading
The ceasefire agreement has three stages. We are just beginning the first phase of implementation.
This phase will result in a suspension of fighting for the next six weeks. Partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, including the Netzarim Corridor. and a surge in aid to the enclave.
The 15-month war in Gaza has leveled the enclave and displaced the majority of the population. The United Nations has repeatedly warned of impending famine in northern Gaza, and its experts have likened Israel’s war tactics to genocide.
At least 47,107 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The Hamas-led offensive in southern Israel left 1,139 people dead and more than 200 captured.
The first phase of the ceasefire is also intended to result in the release of 33 Israeli prisoners from Gaza and the release of approximately 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli custody. So far, three Israeli prisoners and 90 Palestinian prisoners have been released.
The parties have agreed in principle on the second and third stages, but negotiations continue on the details. The second phase is expected to see the remaining Israeli prisoners released in exchange for a “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza.
This goal would be at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s previous pledge to maintain security control of Gaza indefinitely after the war. Far-right members of Netanyahu’s government are also calling for a return to fighting after the first phase is over.
Details of the third phase are sparse, but it reportedly includes a multi-year reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and plans for the return of POW bodies.
The current deal does not include an agreement on who will rule Gaza after the war.
“I don’t have confidence”
Witkoff spoke to Fox News a day after President Trump told reporters he was “not confident” that the ceasefire agreement would hold.
“It’s not our war. It’s their war. But I have no confidence,” President Trump told reporters during a photo op at the White House. “I saw pictures of Gaza. Gaza is like a site of massive destruction.”
The president, whose first term ran from 2017 to 2021, had called for a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel before his inauguration, and promised “hell’s punishment” if no deal was reached. .
It is not immediately clear how President Trump will react if Israel withdraws from the agreement.
Trump has generally been more deferential to Israeli interests than his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Still, the Biden administration has pledged “unwavering” support to Israel and refused to tap into the billions of dollars in military aid the United States would provide to Israel in exchange for a ceasefire.
Both Trump and Biden have claimed credit for reaching this month’s ceasefire agreement.
President Trump is expected to increase U.S. support for Israel as he begins his second term. For example, his administration is filled with pro-Israel hawks, including supporters of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
He has already lifted Biden-era sanctions against Israeli settler groups accused of violence against Palestinians.
Still, Trump ran on a promise to be a global peacemaker and end conflicts overseas as part of his “America First” policy.
In a speech Wednesday, Witkoff credited President Trump’s “peace through strength” approach for being the driving force behind the ceasefire, but acknowledged that the “mathematics” that make up the terms of the deal are not part of the incoming administration.
New efforts towards normalization
Witkoff also said he wants to reignite efforts to normalize relations between Israel and the Arab world, which President Trump spearheaded during his first term to alleviate Israel’s diplomatic isolation.
The so-called Abraham Accords saw Israel establish diplomatic relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, but the negotiations were widely criticized for sidelining Palestinian interests.
Experts also said the future of the Abraham Accords was in doubt amid regional anger over the Gaza war.
Still, Witkoff said he believed a long-elusive normalization deal with Saudi Arabia could still be reached. He went further, saying he believed all countries in the region could “participate” in such an agreement.
“In my own opinion, the conditional precedent for normalization was a ceasefire,” Witkoff said. “We needed to get people to believe again.”
When asked specifically which other countries he thought might be open to a deal, Witkoff singled out Qatar, praising its role as a mediator in the Gaza negotiations.
Qatar has repeatedly rejected the possibility of normalizing relations with Israel.
