Trump’s Mideast envoy confirms plan to visit Gaza to ensure ceasefire deal implemented
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff confirms a report that he plans to visit the Gaza Strip, as the new Trump administration works to ensure that the hostage release and ceasefire deal is implemented.
“I think the execution of the agreement was tough. It is going to be the implementation of the agreement that will be perhaps more difficult. Going to the Gaza Strip is [about] making sure that what we intend to do here at the Netzarim line, in the Philadelphi Corridor, that what we intend to do gets employed in a correct way,” Witkoff says in an interview with Channel 12.
Witkoff agrees that the deal reached last week is effectively the same as the one introduced by former US president Joe Biden last May. “It follows it almost exactly. When we came into the negotiation, we were operating under that agreement,” the Trump aide says, explaining that his boss told him to finalize that proposal and figure out on his own how to do so.
Witkoff says he was moved to tears upon seeing the photos of the three hostages reuniting with their families after they were freed yesterday.
He adds that Trump “felt fulfilled” by the deal and that the US president “felt like his mandate saved lives today.”
As for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Witkoff stresses that a precondition for doing so remains a ceasefire in Gaza, indicating that the current deal must hold before talks with Riyadh can advance.