The China Mail - US hosting new Gaza talks to push next phase of deal

Trump's roving special envoy Steve Witkoff is to meet senior officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in Florida, a White House official told AFP Thursday, amid fears that efforts to reach the second stage of the deal are stalling.

Under the second stage, Israel is supposed to withdraw from its positions in Gaza, an interim authority is to govern the Palestinian territory instead of Hamas, and an international stabilization force is to be deployed.

But progress in moving to that phase of October's agreement between Israel and Hamas, which was brokered by Washington and its regional allies, has so far been slow.

The ceasefire also remains fragile with both sides alleging violations, and mediators fearing that Israel and Hamas alike are stalling.

Israel said it had struck and killed the head of weapons production in Hamas's military wing in the Gaza Strip last weekend, a move that reportedly sparked Trump to warn of jeopardizing the truce.

Trump said Netanyahu would "probably come to see me in Florida," where the US president will be staying over the Christmas holidays at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

"He would like to see me. We haven't set it up formally, but he'd like to see me," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about a report by the Axios news site that Netanyahu was expected to visit on December 29.

- 'Justice is served' -

Trump said in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday that the Gaza truce had brought peace to the Middle East "for the first time in 3,000 years."

In the first phase of the Gaza deal, Palestinian militants committed to releasing the remaining 48 living and dead captives held in the territory. So far, they have released all of the hostages except for one body.

But the Trump administration is now keen to proceed to the difficult second stage, with the provision for Hamas to lay down its weapons being a particular sticking point.

Hamas's Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya said Sunday that the militant group had a "legitimate right" to hold weapons. Israel has repeatedly insisted Hamas "will be disarmed."

The third phase includes the reconstruction of the vast areas of Gaza levelled by Israel's retaliatory military campaign for Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel.

Turkey said Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan would represent Ankara at the talks with Witkoff.

"Turkey will continue to fight determinedly on every front to ensure that what is happening in Gaza is not forgotten, that justice is served," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a speech on Wednesday.

Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner played a key role in the shuttle diplomacy that led to the deal to end the Gaza war.

The US pair are also involved in talks to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and will meet Russian officials in Miami over the weekend.

M.Zhou--ThChM