US envoy tells Israeli hostage families he's working to end war: ‘We have a very, very good plan'
Trump has made ending the conflict a major priority of his administration, though negotiations have faltered.
Steve Witkoff is visiting Israel as its government faces mounting pressure over the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the enclave.
6 President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff met with families of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants.
AFP via Getty Images
In a recording of the meeting, reviewed by Reuters, Witkoff is heard saying: 'We have a very, very good plan that we're working on collectively with the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Netanyahu … for the reconstruction of Gaza. That effectively means the end of the war.'
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his remarks.
Witkoff also said that Hamas was prepared to disarm in order to end the war, though the group has repeatedly said it will not lay down its weapons.
In response, Hamas, which has dominated Gaza since 2007 but has been militarily battered by Israel in the war, said it would not relinquish 'armed resistance' unless an 'independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital' was established.
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and deal for the release of half the hostages ended last week in deadlock.
6 Families Israeli hostages demonstrated in Tel Aviv's 'Hostage' square during Witkoff's visit.
AFP via Getty Images
On Saturday, Hamas released its second video in two days of Israeli hostage Evyatar David.
In it, David, skeletally thin, is shown digging a hole, which, he says in the video, is for his own grave.
'They are on the absolute brink of death,' David's brother Ilay said at a rally in support of the hostages in Tel Aviv, where thousands gathered holding posters of those in captivity and chanted for their immediate release.
'In the current unimaginable condition, they may have only days left to live.'
6 Hamas forced emaciated Israeli hostage Evyatar David to dig his own grave in a recent propaganda video.
Al-Qassam Brigade Footage
6 This poster showed a portrait of David before the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
AFP via Getty Images
Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa'ar said the 'world cannot remain silent in the face of the difficult images that are the result of deliberate sadistic abuse of the hostages, which also includes starvation.'
Witkoff, who arrived in Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu's government facing a global outcry over the devastation in Gaza and the starvation growing among its 2.2 million people, met the prime minister on Thursday.
Afterwards, a senior Israeli official said an understanding between Israel and Washington was emerging that there was a need to move from a plan to release some of the hostages to a plan to release all the hostages, disarm Hamas and demilitarize the Gaza Strip, echoing Israel's key demands for ending the war.
GAZA STARVATION
On Tuesday, Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating ceasefire efforts, endorsed a declaration by France and Saudi Arabia outlining steps toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As part of it, they said Hamas must hand over its arms to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
6 US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee visited the the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
via REUTERS
The crisis in Gaza has also prompted a string of Western powers to announce they may recognize a Palestinian state.
On Friday, Witkoff visited a US-backed aid operation in southern Gaza, which the United Nations has partly blamed for deadly conditions in the enclave, saying he sought to get food and other aid to people there.
Dozens have died of malnutrition in recent weeks after Israel cut off all supplies to the enclave for nearly three months from March to May, according to Gaza's health ministry.
6 Israeli forces have killed hundreds of hungry Palestinians waiting for aid outside US-backed food distribution points, the UN's rights office said,
AFP via Getty Images
It said on Saturday that it had recorded seven more fatalities, including a child, since Friday.
Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.
U.N. agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease the access to it.
The Gaza war began when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures.
Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
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The Hill
8 minutes ago
- The Hill
France and Saudis vow to keep up momentum for ‘two-state solution' to Israel-Palestinian conflict
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — After decades of inaction and frozen negotiations, the issue of an independent Palestinian state living in peace with Israel returned to the spotlight at a high-level U.N. conference — and France and Saudi Arabia, which spearheaded the effort, are determined to keep up the momentum. But hurdles for a two-state solution that would see Israel living side-by-side with an independent Palestine are very high. War in Gaza — a crucial part of a hoped-for Palestinian state — drags on with escalating violence in the West Bank, the other main component. And Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government vehemently oppose an independent Palestinian state, which the Israeli leader says would be a reward for terrorism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against his country. Nonetheless, after eight decades of conflict between Israel and Palestinians, pressure is growing for a two-state solution, as last week's high-level U.N. conference co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia demonstrated — even if it was boycotted by Israel and its close ally, the United States. The conference illustrated that many believe a political solution is possible The French U.N. ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, conceded in an Associated Press interview that without a Gaza ceasefire and massive humanitarian aid for over 2 million Palestinians sliding toward famine, 'it will be extremely difficult to move forward to define a new way of administering Gaza as part of Palestine' – and he said these are priority issues. But the conference demonstrated that a majority of the U.N.'s 193 member nations are 'convinced that there is a possibility of a political solution,' he said, and that is 'what its follow-up will continue to promote.' About 160 of the U.N.'s 193 member nations participated, 125 spoke in support of a two-state solution (forcing the meeting into an unexpected third day), and between 40 and 50 were represented by a government minister. An independent state of Palestine is recognized by over 145 countries, and the meeting sparked new pledges of recognition by three of the seven members of the powerful Group of Seven — France, United Kingdom and Canada — as well as Malta. A statement by seven others, including Australia, New Zealand, Finland and Portugal, expressed 'positive consideration' of following suit. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farham are determined not to let the spotlight fade. They are planning 'an event' during the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly, which starts Sept. 23, when the new pledges are expected to be officially announced. The conference was notable for being co-chaired by an Arab and Western nation, and for setting up eight working groups with diverse chairs to make proposals on key issues for a two state solution — security for Israel and an independent Palestine, political reforms, legal problems, humanitarian assistance, economic development and Gaza reconstruction, to name some. The result was a seven-page 'New York Declaration.' The French and Saudi foreign ministers sent the declaration, with a lengthy annex of recommendations from the working groups, to all 193 U.N. members and asked them to endorse it by early September, before the world leaders' gathering. The declaration, which also was endorsed by the European Union and Arab League, urges Israel to commit to a Palestinian state, and urges further recognitions as 'an essential and indispensable component of the achievement of the two-state solution.' The declaration contains some stronger language For the first time, the Arab League's 22 member nations condemned 'the attacks committed by Hamas against civilians' in southern Israel on Oct. 7, and agree that 'Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority.' It sets out a plan to then move to an independent, demilitarized Palestine, including deployment of a U.N. Security Council-mandated 'temporary international stabilization mission' supported by the Palestinian Authority. It would protect civilians, help build support for a Palestinian state and its security forces, and provide 'security guarantees for Palestine and Israel.' Richard Gowan, the International Crisis Group's U.N. director, gave French President Emmanuel Macron credit 'for raising the level of ambition for the conference,' and helping make it 'more symbolically significant than many diplomats expected.' The meeting gave weighty states including France, Britain and Canada the opportunity 'to signal their discontent with Israeli policy,' he said, and it gave Palestinians seeking a peaceful road to statehood 'some political ammunition.' Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who hosted a Hamas delegation in Istanbul last week to discuss Gaza's humanitarian crisis and stalled ceasefire talks, noted growing global support for the Palestinians and a Palestinian state — and Israel's increasing isolation. Bonnafont, the French ambassador, had messages for Israel's opponents and Israelis seeking more territory. 'We say to those who are hostile to Israel, the way to peace is certainly not to deny the right of existence to Israel. This is the way to perpetual war,' Bonnafont said. 'And the real way to defend the Palestinians is to give them a state, and the only way to give them a state is a two-state solution — and we have demonstrated concretely that this solution exists and is feasible.'
Politico
9 minutes ago
- Politico
The challenge in expanding aid to Gaza
'FAMINES HAVE MOMENTUM' — President Donald Trump signaled a subtle shift within the White House last week, publicly recognizing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Trump acknowledged 'real starvation' in Gaza, while Vice President J.D. Vance urged Israel to increase humanitarian aid access. Other top U.S. officials visited Gaza to witness the humanitarian crisis for themselves before devising an aid plan for the area. The recalibration reflects mounting pressure from both Democrats and Trump allies to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza, as over 1000 people have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to receive aid, and international watchdogs warn of a widespread famine. Globally, U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom and Canada have announced that they will recognize a state of Palestine in September if a ceasefire agreement is not reached or if the Palestinian Authority commits to reforms and elections, respectively. But despite an increased willingness from Trump officials to confirm the existence of a humanitarian crisis, the administration has been light on actual details. Malnutrition remains a widespread problem, even as Israel has started daily pauses in military operations in parts of Gaza and Israel and the U.K. have airdropped aid. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee — the two officials who visited Gaza 't o help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza' — have also yet to share specifics on what that plan could look like. The silence may in part be because increasing aid is a complicated task — especially in a conflict-ridden area like the Gaza Strip. To better understand the state of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza and the challenges to delivering humanitarian aid, Nightly spoke with Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and former director of USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and former executive of the agency's Covid-19 task force. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. At the moment, most aid being distributed in Gaza is organized by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is designed to replace the United Nations aid operation. Since Israel announced this plan in May, many aid organizations refused to work with the organization. Why are aid groups against GHF, and what has changed since they took over aid operations? There's three main complaints that the traditional aid apparatus — the UN-led and NGO-organized aid system that has operated pretty effectively throughout much of the war — have. First, GHF was very much pitched not as additive, but as a substitution, as an alternative. At the same time, the Israeli government is facilitating and really working kind of hand in glove with GHF. GHF even seems to operate like an extension of the IDF and the Israeli presence; they coordinate very, very closely with the IDF in Gaza. That is also being used then as a rationale by the Israeli government for suppressing the rest of the humanitarian system in Gaza. The GHF just has orders of magnitude less capacity and less reach than the traditional aid architecture had. It's not in any meaningful way, a replacement or substitution. It's run by people who are not humanitarian professionals and don't, frankly, have a background, or qualifications, or knowledge or expertise to really do that effectively. The second complaint would be that the model of the GHF puts Palestinians at enormous risk. In order to seek aid from GHF, Palestinians have to run this militarized gauntlet down [the coastal road] and then down the Morag Corridor in order to get to the aid sites. That has produced almost daily massacres. The third is that it's also just wildly inadequate relative to both the scale and the scope of the humanitarian needs in Gaza today. Gaza today is going headlong into a famine. The way you fight famine is not only with food, and this is a well-established humanitarian doctrine that when a population is moving into famine, you need to provide food, yes, but the type of food needs to be appropriately fortified and nutritious and adequately cover the full range of nutritional requirements. The GHF distribution boxes don't really do that. If you're distributing dried food aid that still needs to be prepared, then people need cooking fuel to prepare that. They need shelter and kitchen sets and places to prepare that and the goods with which to prepare it. They need clean water, both for their own drinking, sanitation, hygiene, and of course, to prepare the food. They need really specialized nutritional support, including inpatient malnutrition treatment therapies for people who reach an advanced stage of malnutrition. The pictures that have been coming out of kids in an advanced state of severe, acute malnutrition, those kids can't eat the food that GHF is distributing. Their bodies would not tolerate it at this point. And then finally you need robust health care because we know from famines past, that sometimes a majority, and certainly a large share of the people who die in famines die of disease before starvation takes them. Last week, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said that GHF delivers more than a million meals a day. Does this align with what you're hearing on the ground, and what is in these dried food packs? There's not a lot of transparency about how they're reaching that number, about what's in the food packs, and about how they're calculating what constitutes a meal, even if you take that entirely at face value. I don't know, for example, what's the denominator of what they consider a meal. Is that 800 calories? How much food are they considering constitutes a meal? Of course, normally, a person needs three meals a day, and there's around 2 million people in Gaza. If you look at it that way, a million meals a day, even at face value, is maybe a sixth of the food needs that Gaza has. So, it's not remotely sufficient. It has been widely reported that thousands of aid trucks are waiting outside Gaza. What are the obstacles stopping that aid from reaching Gazans? The principal obstacle is Israeli government policy. During the ceasefire, the Israeli government would allow aid groups to drive trucks across the border directly to the where their warehouses inside Gaza through multiple points of entry around Gaza. There was enough aid that was getting in through that channel that no one had much of an incentive to try and pillage those convoys because there was sufficient aid getting in. Convoys get pillaged when people are so desperate, and they have been so deprived that they're fearful that if they don't get what's on the convoy in front of them, they don't know when or where the next round of aid will be coming from. The bottom line is, there was a system that was working. It was working well, and the Israelis shut it down when they when they were trying to put pressure on Hamas in March, they shut that system down. The variable there, what toggles that on and off, is Israeli government policy. You can just look at the difference between the aid that was going in during the ceasefire, and then what happened in March and April when nothing got in. What needs to happen to alleviate the starvation and malnutrition in Gaza? What needs to happen is a massive scale up of humanitarian access and humanitarian delivery across every part of Gaza. One of the core principles of humanitarian response is you want to bring the aid as close to where the people are as possible. You don't make the people traverse a combat zone in order to get to an aid distribution site. You bring the aid to where they are. That's very possible. Gaza is not a big place. I've overseen U.S. government responses to hunger catastrophes in Yemen, in South Sudan, in Ethiopia, in northeast Nigeria, and in my NGO career in Somalia with the 2011 famine as well. Those were all large, logistically complicated places with huge populations. Gaza is a tiny place with 2 million people. If humanitarian groups had access and were not being impeded from doing their work, they could scale up a very robust response, really rapidly. But the limiting factor is political obstruction of their ability to do that. If that were removed, what they would then ramp up the distribution of appropriately nutritious food and alongside that, you scale up nutrition support programs. And of course, sanitation and hygiene are really important. If no significant changes are made, what do you see as the trajectory of the humanitarian crisis? It will continue to get worse. Famines have momentum. The more malnourished, the more vulnerable a population gets, the more of them become vulnerable to dying. When you have a huge swath of the population that is in a state of significant malnutrition, and you've got a huge population of people who are succumbing to disease, succumbing to injury, the risk to them grows and grows the longer that they're in that in that situation. I think the further someone deteriorates into a state of severe malnutrition, the harder and more expensive and more time consuming it is to return them to health. What happens in a famine situation, is because as you go further down that trajectory, the number of people at risk and the amount of effort it takes to stabilize them grows exponentially, thereby, too, the risk of mortality grows exponentially the longer that it is allowed to progress. The fear that I have is that what we're seeing now in Gaza, with these daily clusters of deaths from starvation is kind of the leading edge of that exponential trajectory. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@ Or contact tonight's author at jmunis@ What'd I Miss? — CBO: Republican megabill to cost $4.1T, due to higher borrowing costs: Interest rates will be higher over the next decade because of the GOP's megabill and drive up borrowing costs even for the federal government, Congress' nonpartisan scorekeeper predicts in a new report released Monday. In an analysis of the massive domestic policy package President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the measure will increase the federal deficit by $4.1 trillion over a decade. Because the bill's red ink is not offset by more spending cuts or new revenue, CBO found, the legislation will drive up interest rates. — Trump again threatens India with tariffs over its trade with Russia: President Donald Trump on Monday again threatened to raise tariffs on India over its Russian oil purchases, once again infusing geopolitics and international security into his trade war economic policy. Trump's threat marks the second time in under a week that he has attacked India for its dealings with Russia. Last Wednesday, Trump announced he was issuing 25 percent tariffs on New Delhi due to what he identified as longstanding trade barriers. But he previewed an additional penalty for India's trade with Moscow in military equipment. — State Department to charge some travelers $10,000 bond to get visas: The State Department is launching a pilot program wherein it will require travelers entering the United States on tourism and business visas to pay a hefty bond as a guarantee they will not stay in the United States. In a cable sent to State Department employees Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the department will implement a 12-month pilot of a 'visa bond' program designed to target travelers from countries whose nationals have a high rate of overstaying their visas. That bond could total up to $15,000 per person, but the cable says consular officers will be expected to require a $10,000 bond per adult and $5,000 per child, according to two State Department officials familiar with the cable. — Warren boosts Mamdani as model for Democratic victory: Elizabeth Warren doesn't have a problem with Zohran Mamdani being the face of the Democrats. In fact, she wants the rest of the party to follow his example on affordability. The progressive senator from Massachusetts swung by New York City on Monday to pay homage to Mamdani, who overwhelmingly won the Democratic nomination for mayor in June — but still hasn't secured endorsements from many of New York's party leaders. — Duffy to announce nuclear reactor on the moon: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will announce expedited plans this week to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, the first major action by the former Fox News host as the interim NASA administrator. NASA has discussed building a reactor on the lunar surface, but this would set a more definitive timeline — according to documents obtained by POLITICO — and come just as the agency faces a massive budget cut. The move also underscores how Duffy, who faced pushback from lawmakers about handling two jobs, wants to play a role in NASA policymaking. AROUND THE WORLD DIRECT MEETING— Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to meet with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy if the groundwork is done beforehand, the Kremlin announced Monday. 'I want to remind you that the president himself does not rule out holding such a meeting after the necessary work is done at the expert level and the necessary distance has been covered,' Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. However, he added, that preparatory work 'has not yet been done.' Zelenskyy called for a direct meeting with Putin last week after the Kremlin chief expressed hope for further peace talks and said Russian troops were 'advancing on the entire front line.' THE CASHLESS SOCIETY — In a country where cash is king, Prime Minister Edi Rama's ambition to make Albania go without by 2030 would turn society on its head. For years, Albanians have preferred to keep their cash under the mattress — next to their AK-47, as the national joke goes — rather than in banks. But if Rama gets his wish, Albania would become the world's first cashless economy. Much of the reason for this is that at the moment so many transactions happen under the counter. The elimination of cash 'is an absolute priority for countries with high informality and destabilizing amounts of illegal money in the financial system,' said Selami Xhepa, professor of economic science at the University of Tirana. Nightly Number RADAR SWEEP SLOTS FOR SOLDIERS — Although Congress may have banned gambling devices from domestic U.S. bases, casino-style slot machines are still installed abroad, raking in millions of dollars from service members — many who are more likely to struggle with gambling disorders than civilians. The money that is raised through the slot machines is reinvested into recreation for troops, but an increasing number of service members and experts are saying that more of that money needs to be used toward prevention, education, and treatment from problem gambling. Molly Longman reports on the risk of installing on-base slot machines for Wired. Parting Image
New York Post
38 minutes ago
- New York Post
Former NYT staffer blasts Gray Lady for ‘twisting' facts about Israeli hostage digging own grave
A former New York Times staffer on Monday slammed the Gray Lady for 'twisting' the facts about how it framed a story about an emaciated Israeli hostage being forced to dig his own grave. The liberal broadsheet — which was forced to amend a front-page article featuring an image of a supposedly starving child in Gaza — published a video on Saturday about Israeli Evyatar David being held by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023, without using the horrific photo of his skeletal frame. The video ran with the headline, 'Hundreds Protest in Tel Aviv After Hostage Videos Surface From Gaza,' and claimed, 'The circulation of videos created by Hamas showing Israeli hostages living in dire conditions incited families to protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand a cease-fire and the return of their loved ones.' Advertisement 5 Yaakov Ort slammed his former employer, The New York Times on Facebook, calling out the newspaper's slanted coverage. Yaakov Ort/Facebook Yaakov Ort, who spent 35 years at the Times working in its creative services division, ripped his former employer over the false premise that the majority of Israelis were protesting to demand a cease-fire. 'This is an appalling twisting of the facts, and mindful, heartless concealment of the truth: Rather than running a photo of hostage Evyatar David being forced to dig his own grave by Hamas terrorists, and writing about the actual reaction of million of Israelis to seeing it, the foreign desk and photo desk ran a photo of a relative handful of protestors in Tel Aviv,' Ort wrote on his Facebook page. Advertisement Ort, who is now a senior editor at said that he has never publicly chastised his former colleagues but was aghast at the editiorial decision. 'If The Times had a Jerusalem bureau that reported the thoughts, communications and actions of the vast majority of Israelis, they would have told readers that the reaction of millions to this and other photos and videos of the physical and psychological torture of our children is not fear or protest, It is horror, rage and resolve,' he wrote 'The symbolism of the photo is so apt, since digging our own graves is exactly what the current Times news, editorial and op-ed page writers and editors, and those justifiably fearful of the Islamic street in the the West are arguing daily that we should do. Guess what? We won't.' Advertisement 5 Evyatar David was abducted on Oct. 7 at the Nova rave in southern Israel. The Times did not respond to requests for comment. David, 24, was abducted in one of the bloodiest scenes of Oct. 7. at the Nova rave in southern Israel, where more than 350 people were massacred by Hamas terrorists. David's family said in a statement to The Times that he had become a 'living skeleton, buried alive' in Hamas tunnels. Ort's outrage comes after the Times amended a story it had published containing a shocking image of a child purportedly suffering from starvation in Gaza. Advertisement In an editor's note buried in last Tuesday's edition, readers learned Mohammed Zakaria al Mutawaq — the Gazan boy 'diagnosed with severe malnutrition' and pictured in the article — suffers from 'pre-existing health problems.' 5 David has beeb held by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023. He recently appeared in a harrowing video by Hamas. Al-Qassam Brigade Footage 'We recently ran a story about Gaza's most vulnerable civilians, including Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, who is about 18 months old and suffers from severe malnutrition,' a spokesperson for the outlet said in a statement. 'We have since learned new information, including from the hospital that treated him and his medical records, and have updated our story to add context about his pre-existing health problems,' the rep continued. 'This additional detail gives readers a greater understanding of his situation.' 5 The New York Times has been under fire for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. NurPhoto via Getty Images The image of Mohammed — shown with a gaunt face and his spine protruding from his back as his mother held him — went viral, with many using him as the poster child for starvation in the Palestinian enclave amid Israel's war against Hamas. Advertisement Days after The Times published images of Mohammed, pro-Israel group HonestReporting noted on July 27 that the boy's older brother, Joud, is standing in the background, appearing in far better condition. Mohammed's mother told CNN that her son suffers from a 'muscle disorder' for which he receives specialized nutrition and physical therapy.
