U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff met in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, aiming to reinforce Israel’s fragile ceasefire with Hamas militants in Gaza after more than 15 months of warfare.
Later, Witkoff, who played a key role in shaping the six-week truce, inspected the Netzarim Corridor, a 6-kilometer-wide strip of land that bisects Gaza, where American security contractors have been hired to help oversee the return of displaced Palestinians.
Witkoff was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Gaza in years. American officials have stayed away from the narrow territory along the Mediterranean Sea because of security concerns and Washington’s no-contact policy with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group.
Witkoff told Fox News last week he also plans to visit the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, but the timing of the stop there was unclear.
Israeli troops control the 13-kilometer corridor but are expected to withdraw during the second phase of the ceasefire, the exact details of which are still being negotiated by Israel and Hamas. Netanyahu has called the corridor a lifeline for the militants’ smuggling operations.
Netanyahu is headed to Washington this weekend. Trump has invited him for talks at the White House on Tuesday, his first meeting with a foreign leader since starting his second term in office.
Meanwhile during the ceasefire in Gaza, Israel has ramped up its military operations in the occupied West Bank. Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a visit to the city of Jenin on Wednesday that Israel has “declared war on Palestinian terrorism in Judea and Samaria,” referring to the West Bank.
“The Jenin refugee camp will not return to what it was,” he said. “After the operation is completed, the [Israel Defense Forces] will remain in the camp to ensure that terrorism does not return.”
Ahead of his visit with Netanyahu, Witkoff stressed the need for proper implementation of the ceasefire, which halted the fighting and so far has brought the release of seven hostages held by Hamas and freed 300 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
More releases are set to take place in the coming days.
The first phase of the ceasefire lasts for 42 days, about one-quarter of which has passed. It calls for the release of 33 hostages from Gaza, as well as negotiations on the details of the second phase involving the release of the rest of the hostages, an end to the conflict and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Palestinians in Gaza have been allowed back into some areas long held off-limits by Israeli troops, including northern Gaza, where the United Nations said Wednesday more than 423,000 people have returned this week.
On orders from Israel, about 1 million people fled the area in the early days of the war, and those returning are going back to an area that has been decimated by Israeli military operations against Hamas.
Under the cease-fire, the United Nations has been facilitating a surge in humanitarian aid to Gaza. The U.N. humanitarian office said Tuesday that aid deliveries have “meaningfully expanded,” including reaching areas that aid workers had previously been unable to reach.
“Field assessments reveal massive levels of destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure, particularly in northern Gaza, underlining the critical need to ramp up rehabilitation and repair efforts to meet basic human needs,” the agency said.
Rebuilding Gaza is the focus of the final phase of the ceasefire agreement, while also deciding who will govern the territory, which has been under Hamas rule since 2007.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed in a phone call Tuesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty the need to work together “to advance post-conflict planning to ensure Hamas can never govern Gaza or threaten Israel again,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar were the key mediators in months of negotiations that yielded the ceasefire deal.
Trump has drawn criticism in recent days for his repeated suggestion to forcibly relocate large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Jordan and Egypt.
Palestinians and Arab states, including Egypt and Jordan, have rejected Trump’s idea to take in Palestinians, fearing their displacement would become permanent.
The war in Gaza started with the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 250 hostages.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed at least 47,300 people, most of them women and children, according to health officials. The Israeli military said the death toll includes 17,000 militants.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
