Witkoff briefs UN Security Council envoys on Israel’s Gaza aid plans

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff briefed UN Security Council on a new Israeli plan to resume the distribution of aid to Gaza, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.

After the briefing, which also addressed other regional issues, Witkoff held a brief one-one-one with Israel Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, the latter’s office said.

The aid initiative, which was approved by the Israeli cabinet last week and enjoys US backing, has been lambasted by international organizations as insufficient and potentially dangerous.

According to the Axios news site, the Trump administration is “lobbying countries to donate money to the mechanism and the UN to cooperate with it.” The US State Department declined to comment on the matter.

Israel stopped allowing aid into Gaza on March 2 after the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas ended. Jerusalem has argued that Hamas diverted much of the aid that entered during the six-week truce, but that the 650 trucks per day that entered were enough to feed the population for an extended period.

Data and testimony from inside the Strip point to a worsening hunger crisis and rising rates of malnutrition, while Jerusalem works on implementing a new system to distribute aid in a manner that it hopes will prevent it from reaching Hamas.

Israeli officials have to date claimed that Gazans are not yet starving, but an Israeli official said last week that the IDF believes it only has several weeks before a major humanitarian crisis erupts in the Strip due to the lack of food and medical supplies.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that his administration will help get food to “starving” Gazans amid the two-month-and-counting Israeli aid blockade, but added that Hamas has made it “impossible” by diverting humanitarian assistance for its fighters.

“We’re going to help the people of Gaza get some food. People are starving, and we’re going to help them get some food,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House.

Separately, Trump has in recent days teased an upcoming “very, very big announcement” during his upcoming Middle East trip, and a foreign diplomat told The Times of Israel Wednesday that the announcement will likely be about this international aid mechanism for the Strip.

Trump made a coy reference to the announcement during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Tuesday, saying it would be “one of the most important announcements that have been made in many years about a certain subject,” and that it would be “very positive.”

Israel approved its new aid initiative last week, first reported by The Times of Israel on Friday, which would entail the IDF transitioning away from wholesale distribution and warehousing of aid and instead have international organizations and private security contractors hand out boxes of food to individual Gazan families.

International aid organizations briefed on the initiative said Sunday that they won’t cooperate with Israel’s new plan, as it doesn’t properly address the humanitarian crisis.

US administration of Gaza

Reports of the new US-Israeli aid initiative came as a Wednesday report by Reuters said the United States and Israel have also discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary postwar administration of Gaza.

The “high-level” consultations have centered around a transitional government headed by a US official that would oversee Gaza until it has been demilitarized and stabilized, and a viable Palestinian administration has emerged, according to five people familiar with the matter.

According to the discussions, which remain preliminary, there would be no fixed timeline for how long such a US-led administration would last, and it would depend on the situation on the ground, the five sources said.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly, compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The authority was perceived by many Iraqis as an occupying force and it transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004 after failing to contain a growing insurgency.

Other countries would be invited to take part in the US-led authority in Gaza, the sources said, without identifying which ones. They said the administration would draw on Palestinian technocrats but would exclude Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Trump first floated the idea of US control of the Strip back in February, when he stunned the world and said the US “will take over the Gaza Strip,” “own it,” and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” during a press conference in the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While the initial momentum of Trump’s Gaza plan has slowed, with the US reportedly more open to considering Arab-led plans for the post-war Strip, the Wednesday report suggested that plans for a US-administered Gaza are still on the table.

Doha and Cairo: No rift between ‘sister countries’

Qatar and Egypt said in a joint statement Wednesday that the two countries are working together “with a shared vision to bring an end to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza” by securing a ceasefire to pause, or end, the now 18-month old war in the enclave and free the remaining hostages held there by terror groups.

The joint statement between the two key mediators also pushed back against what it described as recent attempts to create a rift between the “sister countries” via the media.

Reports have surfaced in recent months portraying strained ties between the countries, with each downplaying the other’s contribution to efforts to end the fighting in Gaza and free the hostages.

The allegations came to the fore in connection with the so-called Qatargate scandal in Israel, which revolves around suspicions that advisers to Netanyahu received money from Doha to launch a media campaign aimed at undermining Egypt’s role as mediator and bolster Qatar’s influence in the ceasefire negotiations.

As the negotiations have ground to a near-complete halt in recent weeks, Hamas said Wednesday that the group will only agree to a “comprehensive” agreement to end the war.

“Hamas and the resistance factions insist on reaching a comprehensive agreement and a full package to end the war and aggression, along with a roadmap for the day after,” political bureau member Bassem Naim told AFP.

“There are desperate attempts ahead of [US President Donald] Trump’s visit to the region… to force through a partial deal that would return some Israeli captives in exchange for a limited number of days of food and water — without any guarantees from any party to actually end the war,” he said.

This statement followed a similar one from the same senior Hamas official, who said Tuesday that “There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip.”

To conquer and hold

As Israel last week approved plans for a renewed large-scale IDF offensive in Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that fighting will not stop until it reaches its goals of conquering and holding the Strip.

“Operation Gideon’s Chariots is intended to defeat Hamas and bring about the release of all the hostages,” he said in remarks published by his office.

“We will act with great force to destroy all of Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities, while creating strong pressure for the release of all the hostages,” Katz continued.

The remarks came following an assessment with the IDF’s 162nd Division, which is due to take part in the offensive.

The defense minister said that “unlike in the past, the IDF will remain in every area [it conquers] to prevent the return of terrorism and to clear and thwart any threat.”

“From the moment the maneuver begins, we will act with great force and will not stop until all objectives are achieved, including the voluntary emigration plan for the residents of Gaza,” Katz added.

He said the campaign will not be launched until Trump wraps up a trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates slated for May 13 to May 16, indicating it could still be called off if a hostage deal is reached.

The current preparation phase “allows a window of opportunity until the end of the US president’s visit to the region to reach a hostage deal,” he said.

He said that Israeli troops will remain in a buffer zone inside Gaza “in any temporary or permanent arrangement,” as it is intended to protect Israeli communities and prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons.

European countries reject new IDF war plans

Six European countries said Wednesday that they “firmly reject any demographic or territorial change in Gaza.”

Israel’s plan “would mark a new and dangerous escalation” in the war, the foreign ministers of Spain, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway and Slovenia said in a joint statement.

The foreign ministers, who apart from Luxembourg represent countries that have recognized a Palestinian state, said the plans would “cross another line” and “endanger any perspective of a viable two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A military escalation would “worsen an already catastrophic situation” for Palestinian civilians and endanger the lives of hostages held in Gaza, they added.

The ministers also asked Israel to “immediately lift the blockade” it has imposed on Gaza-bound humanitarian aid that has caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine and increased fears of famine.

“What is needed more urgently than ever is the resumption of the ceasefire and the unconditional release of all the hostages,” they said.

Separately, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Wednesday that Madrid will present a draft resolution at the UN General Assembly aimed at “proposing urgent measures to stop the killing of innocent civilians and ensure humanitarian aid” in Gaza.

Similarly, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached “critical” levels unseen in the past and that it is urgent to allow the distribution of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

Macron also said that while Israel is entitled to fight a terrorist organization, it is “unacceptable” for it to act without respecting any rules.

The war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, which saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, of whom 58 remain in Gaza, including at least 35 who are thought to be dead, in addition to the remains of a soldier who was killed in the Strip in 2014.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 414.

More than 52,500 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. The figures cannot be independently verified, and do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January, and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas onslaught.

Agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.