Efforts for Ceasefire in Gaza: President-elect Donald Trump’s Middle East Envoy Witkoff to Meet Prime Minister Netanyahu
CAIRO – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, an Israeli official said. The meeting comes after his visit to Doha and is part of ongoing efforts to secure a ceasefire and a hostage release deal in Gaza.
An Israeli official stated that some progress has been made in the indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States. Mediators are making renewed efforts to secure a ceasefire and ensure the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza before Trump takes office on January 20.
Witkoff arrived in Doha on Friday and met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, according to a statement released by Qatar’s foreign ministry.
Egyptian and Qatari mediators have received assurances from Witkoff that the U.S. will continue working toward a fair deal to end the war soon, although no further details were provided, according to Egyptian security sources.
On Saturday, eight people, including two women and two children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a former school sheltering displaced families in Jabalia, in northern Gaza. The Israeli military stated that the strike targeted Hamas militants operating at the school and that measures had been taken to minimize civilian harm.
Later on Saturday, Gaza’s Civil Emergency Service reported that five people were killed and several others were injured in two Israeli strikes. One of the strikes killed three people in a house near Gaza City’s Daraj neighborhood. The Israeli military confirmed that they had targeted a Hamas militant in the area around that time.
Hamas fighters attacked Israeli borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages, according to Israeli counts. Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave destroyed and gripped by a humanitarian crisis, with most of its population displaced.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo. Additional reporting by Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo; Edited by Mark Potter and Conor Humphries.)
