Trump’s Mideast envoy visits Gaza before meeting with Netanyahu

TEL AVIV, Israel — President Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who helped broker the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement, visited Gaza on Wednesday, hours before he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Witkoff’s visit to Gaza was confirmed by a U.S. State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Israeli news organizations reported that the country’s military took Witkoff to inspect the Netzarim Corridor, which it created during the war to split the Gaza Strip in two. It partially withdrew from the corridor in recent days, allowing tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to the territory’s north.

Large swaths of Gaza have been destroyed since Israel launched an offensive in response to Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas-led militants who killed nearly 1,200 people in Israel and took another 251 hostage. Over 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since, according to Gaza health officials.

As part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement brokered by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt, Hamas is scheduled to release 33 Israeli hostages, including eight who are believed to be dead, in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Seven Israeli hostages have been released so far, as have nearly 300 Palestinian prisoners. More exchanges are scheduled to take place this week.

Witkoff’s visit to Gaza is the first by a high-ranking U.S. official in more than a decade. Hamas has run Gaza since 2007. The U.S. designated it a terrorist organization a decade earlier. Witkoff’s Israel visit comes after a trip to Saudi Arabia, and ahead of Netanyahu’s expected travel to Washington next week to meet Trump.

The Trump administration is urging Israel to extend the ceasefire with Hamas. Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right allies to return to fighting in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump next Tuesday would make him the first world leader to visit the White House since the U.S. president began his second term on Jan 20.