The US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, visited Gaza on Wednesday (29) and met the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, amid ceasefire and regional diplomatic effort.
Witkoff, whose visit to Gaza was confirmed by a White House employee, is in the region to supervise the implementation of the ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump hopes to leverage this agreement in a broader regiment that would include Saudi Arabia and Israel formalizing diplomatic ties. Witkoff visited Saudi Arabia on Tuesday (28).
Witkoff met Netanyahu alone for more than two hours, an Israeli official said before joining other ministers.
Netanyahu has long been ties with the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and when negotiations for the next phase of three-stage ceasefire in Gaza should start formally.
An Israeli government spokesman and the White House employee refused to provide details about Witkoff’s visit to Gaza, which Israeli public broadcaster Kan said it included an inspection from.
Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians crossed the route that cuts Gaza from east to west as they returned to their homes in the northern part of the enclave.
Israel began to leave the corridor on Monday (27) and allowed civilians as part of the first six-week phase of ceasefire, which will also have 33 hostages released in exchange for nearly 2,000 prisoners and detainees Palestinians.
Seven hostages have been released since the ceasefire came into force on January 19. Three more, including a civilian woman and an elderly man, as well as a soldier woman, will be released on Thursday (30), according to Netanyahu’s office.
Israel will free 110 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Information Office, including 30 minors and 32 prisoners serving perpetual penalties for deadly attacks that killed dozens of Israeli.
Five Thai citizens kidnapped Israel during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 that triggered the conflict in Gaza can also be released on Thursday, according to an Israeli authority. About 90 hostages currently remain in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities, 10 of them foreigners.
The second stage of the agreement, if agreed in negotiations, aims to pave the way for the end of the war with the liberation of all hostages and a complete Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza.
Gaza is among the territories that Palestinians seek for an independent state. Saudi Arabia has conditioned formal ties with Israel as a Palestinian state and it is unlikely to make progress on this front if the war in Gaza is resumed.
In Riyadh, Witkoff also met Hussein Al-Sheikh, a senior counselor of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the White House employee.
Trump, in his first term in office, brokered Abraham’s agreements in 2020 and led Israel to normalize ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
