Washington DC – United States President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has announced that he will visit Gaza in the coming days to monitor the ceasefire agreement reached last week between Israel and Hamas. An “inspection team” has been named.
During an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Witkov said he would visit two Israeli-occupied territories in Gaza as part of an upcoming visit to Israel.
“I’m going to be part of an inspection team on the Netzerum Corridor and the Philadelphia Corridor,” Witkoff said. “That’s where you have outside guards, to make sure that people are safe and that people who are entering are not armed, and that nobody has a bad motive.”
The Netzerum Corridor separates northern and southern Gaza and has been occupied by Israeli forces since the Palestinian enclave was invaded in late October 2023. The Philadelphia Corridor runs between southern Gaza and Egypt. Israel’s military took “operational control” of the area in May last year.
It will be the envoy’s first visit to the Middle East since Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire deal on January 15. Witkoff, a businessman with no diplomatic experience, had previously been involved in negotiations in Qatar that led to the deal.
It will also be Witkoff’s first visit since Trump took office on Monday. Since his inauguration, Trump has said he doesn’t believe the deal will hold. The deal came into force on Sunday, a day after an Israeli sniper killed a child in Rafah, in an incident captured on video.
“We have to make sure that the execution goes well, because if it goes well, we’ll enter the second phase, and we’re going to take out a lot of dead bodies,” Witkov said, referring to Israeli prisoners of war. He said while giving. Gaza.
“And I think that’s the president’s directive to me and to everyone working on it in the American government.”
A three-phase deal
There are three stages to the ceasefire agreement. Only the implementation of the first phase has started.
Over the next six weeks, this phase aims to see a break in the fighting. the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, including from the Netzarim Corridor; and increasing enclave aid.
Fifteen months of war in Gaza have leveled the enclave and displaced the majority of its population. The United Nations has repeatedly warned of impending famine in northern Gaza, and its experts have compared Israel’s war tactics to genocide.
All told, at least 47,107 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel killed 1,139 people, while more than 200 were taken hostage.
The first phase of the ceasefire also aims to release 33 Israeli prisoners from Gaza and about 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli custody. So far, three Israeli prisoners and 90 Palestinian prisoners have been released.
The second and third phases have been agreed in principle, but the details are still being discussed. In the second phase, the remaining Israeli prisoners are expected to be released in exchange for the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza.
This goal would be at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s previous pledges to retain control of Gaza’s security indefinitely after the war. Far-right members of Netanyahu’s government have also called for a return to fighting after the first phase is over.
The details of the third phase are less clear, but reportedly include plans for a multi-year reconstruction in Gaza and the return of bodies of captives.
The current agreement does not include an agreement on who will govern Gaza after the war.
‘not confident’
Witkoff spoke to Fox News, a day after Trump told reporters he was “not confident” the ceasefire would hold.
“This is not our war. This is their war. But I’m not sure,” Trump told a reporter at a photo opportunity at the White House. “I saw a picture of Gaza. Gaza is like a place of massive destruction.
The US president, whose first term spans from 2017 to 2021, called for a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel before his inauguration, promising “hell to pay” if no deal is reached. Will have to.”
It was not immediately clear how Trump would respond if Israel pulls out of the deal.
Trump has generally been more accommodating to Israeli interests than his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Still, the Biden administration pledged “unwavering” support for Israel and refused to take advantage of the billions of dollars in military aid the U.S. provided to Israel in exchange for a cease-fire.
Both Trump and Biden have claimed credit for reaching this month’s ceasefire agreement.
As he begins his second term, Trump is expected to expand US support for Israel. For example, his administration is filled with supporters of Israel, including supporters of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Already, he has rolled back Biden-era sanctions on Israeli settler groups accused of violence against Palestinians.
Still, Trump ran on a pledge to be a global peacemaker and end conflicts abroad as part of his “America First” agenda.
Speaking on Wednesday, Witkoff cited Trump’s “peace through strength” approach as the driving force behind the ceasefire, while the incoming administration was not involved in the “mathematics” that shaped the terms of the deal. .
A renewed push for normalcy
Witkoff also said he hoped Trump would resume Israeli-Arab normalization efforts during his first term in order to isolate Israel less diplomatically.
The so-called Ibrahim Accords saw Israel establish diplomatic ties with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, but the negotiations were widely criticized for marginalizing Palestinian interests.
Experts have also said that the future of the Abraham Accords is in doubt amid regional outrage over the Gaza war.
Still, Witkoff said he believed a long-term normalization deal with Saudi Arabia could be reached. He went further, saying he believed every country in the region could be “on board” with such an agreement.
“My own view is that the conditional precedent for normalization was a ceasefire,” Witkoff said. “We needed to reassure people.”
When asked to name which other countries he thought would be open to a deal, Witkov pointed to Qatar, praising its role as a mediator in the Gaza talks.
Qatar has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of normalizing relations with Israel.
