President-elect Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is considering visiting the Gaza Strip to ensure the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas stays on track, NBC News reported Saturday, citing a transition official.
According to media reports, Witkoff’s pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is what led to the deal. A White House official acknowledged on Sunday that the Trump team provided “significant support” to clinch the agreement.
Netanyahu has said he received assurances from Trump that he could restart military operations in Gaza after the first phase of the deal if he chooses to do so, but the NBC report suggests Witkoff is determined to see that the deal leads to the end of the conflict and the reconstruction of Gaza.
The report said Witkoff plans to have a “near-constant” presence in the region to deal with potential issues that may threaten the deal. “You have to be right on top of it, ready to snuff out a problem if it happens,” the transition official said.
The official said the incoming administration was worried about elements on both sides that might seek to sabotage the deal. “Remember, there’s a lot of people, radicals, fanatics, not just from the Hamas side, from the right wing of the Israeli side, who are absolutely incentivized to blow this whole deal up,” the official said.
The incoming administration is also considering relocating Palestinians who live in Gaza during the reconstruction, and the official mentioned Indonesia is a potential option. However, Palestinians may not be willing to leave since they fear that Israel won’t let them return.
Many Israeli ministers and members of the Knesset are openly in favor of ethnic cleansing in Gaza to pave the way for the establishment of Jewish settlements, and those elements are the loudest opponents of the ceasefire deal.
The transition official speaking to NBC stressed the importance of good conditions for the Palestinians to ensure the ceasefire holds. “If we don’t help the Gazans, if we don’t make their life better if we don’t give them a sense of hope, there’s going to be a rebellion,” the official said.
Palestinians can build. Set up temporary housing.
They will need huge machines to remove the rubble. And where are they going to get rid of it?
A few options. As I expect most of it was structural (concrete and brick) one could separate out rebar and related metals for scrap.
Then, once all the human remains are removed (unless one uses the World Trade Center Method, of "gather & quickly dispose the rubble, don't do forensics") the remaining concrete and solids can be crushed into aggregate for road base or drainage.
Plus there's the option to use "clean" solids for riparian use, and offshore as artificial islands / peninsulas for future waterfront applications (sewage treatment, power generation, desalinisation).
All you need is money & time.
Don't forget the scrap metal includes a 5% bomb dud rate. Children in Laos continue to die annually from the bombs we graced them with in the 60s.
I did forget that – excellent point !
Where did you get the 5% dud rate for large modern bombs?
Where would anyone put it? And where would anyone else get machinery?
Someone needs to pay restitution.
Rather than some Kushner Saudi investment corporation that builds settler villages.
No matter what happens to the current Israel/Hamas situation, the main obstacle to ANY progress in the future will continue to be Israel's chokehold on American politics! Nothing will change as long as Israel can get away with murder anytime it wants to!
"The incoming administration is also considering relocating Palestinians who live in Gaza during the reconstruction, and the official Indonesia is a potential option." What an insane idea. 1. Indonesia would not accept them, 2. Why would Palestinians risk leaving?
You're mistaken about Indonesia. It has long had a close and supportive relationship with the Palestinians since Arafat and the PLO continung with the PA and Mahmoud Abbas. It's unsurprizing Witkoff would look to Indonesia, they've already offered to take medcal patients for treatment and orphaned, tramatized children for schooling with all remaining until the situtation stablizes.
Unlikely any Muslim country would be willing to assist Israel in their ethnic cleansing campaign of Palestinians from Palestine. Germany had the same problem getting rid of their Jews prior to WWII.
Relocation during reconstruction would only become ethnic cleansing were the Palestinians not allowed to return. You're quite right, as Bloody Blinken Secretary of Genocide found early in the "war" when trying to sell the gulf states on the Zionists century-long Palestinian "transfer" plan.
"become ethnic cleansing were the Palestinians not allowed to return" Exactly why would the Palestinians take that risk. The Palestinians trusted the Arab armies would win the 1948 thus allowing them to return. That did not work out.
I find it hard to believe Indonesia would take in a large number Palestinians despite their close relationship.
The Zionists are definitely going to miss the installed 2020 regime in the White House. They basically could do whatever the hell they wanted to Palestinians for the past 15 months. Where are they ever going to find another stooge like Joe Robinette Biden?
Probably from among almost the entire set of American elites in every sector, government business academia media and finance.
People have a hard time understanding the reality you stated.
People have seen what trump did in the past. They know trump is a real friend of Israel.
Probably never. But it's not like the little parasite will be cut loose. Anything will look good when compared to Biden/Harris.
Don't be so sure about that.
Trump is a very stronger supporter of Israel. Nothing will change. Just watch and see.
Witkoff needs to visit Gaza. He also needs to take a page from China's playbook and meet with Palestinian leaders from Hamas, Fatah and the 12 other Palestinian factions China brought together in July and pursue the reconciliation ground work laid. Netanyahu’s success in keeping the Palestinian national movement splintered between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority got him to Genocide. It sounds Trump's team is coming to understand the national Palestinian concept of sumud. One hopes.
Remember to bring some crazy glue! That will help things to stick, together!…
They should be placed in Israel. That’s the only way to assure they will be “allowed back” to Gaza.
Witkoff is a brave and good man. There is no peace prize worthy of him should he pull this off.
Don’t confuse Maga with mega!…
Is Witkoff listening to what Netanyahu is saying?
The Israeli prime minister said that Trump had described the ceasefire as a “temporary” one. “[Trump] welcomed the agreement and rightly emphasized that the first stage of the agreement is a temporary ceasefire. That is what he said, ‘a temporary ceasefire,'” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu said that Trump also agreed to “lift the remaining restrictions on providing vital weapons and munitions to the State of Israel. If we need to go back to the fighting, we will do so in new ways and with great force.
Or Smotrich?
“Don’t be impressed by the forced joy of our enemy. This is an animalistic society that sanctifies death. Very soon, we will erase their smile again and replace it with cries of grief and the wails of those who were left with nothing,” Smotrich said.
https://news.antiwar.com/2025/01/19/netanyahu-says-us-gave-guarantee-that-he-can-restart-military-operations-in-gaza/
He doesn't have to visit Gaza; he just has to visit antiwar.com and he'll see what Israel's very own government officials are saying. And it isn't about peaceful coexistence.
Exactly. Classic double-speak, … or, in the seedy 42nd St. image of the seedy Gotham of his seedy hey-day, the shell game. I half expect a sortie in Gaza during the inauguration to show the world where the capital of the US of I really is.
I haven’t looked for another source on this yet, have you seen it?
Ryan Rozbiani@
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* BREAKING: Israeli Lawyer Accuses Israel of Genocide to
ICC
Israeli lawyer Omer Shatz has accused 8 officials, including President Herzog and PM Netanyahu, of incitement to genocide against Palestinians in a submission to the ICC.
Found it:
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2024/12/07/un-avocat-accuse-israel-d-incitation-au-genocide-et-demande-a-la-cpi-d-enqueter_6435195_3210.html
I could only read so far since I'm not a subscriber. But I've been saving a lot of those quotes so I can use them when our Hasbara (paid or unpaid) trolls talk their shit. It's truly unbelievable that most people don't have a clue as to what sewage pours out of the mouths of those eight mentioned. And we still back them.
There is a possibility that Israel would eliminate Witkoff and blame it on Hamas to continue its atrocities…!
Jared Kushner is secretly building an exact copy of Mar-a-Lago on the banks of the Mediterranean so that Witkoff can feel right at home. it will be a Potemkin village where everyone is happy and getting along.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/01/20/competency-crisis-proliferating-west/
Alastair Crooke
BREAKING: President Trump has secured the release of roughly 1500 J6 hostages by executive pardon. The President has ordered the release of the American hostages as early as tonight. A dark chapter in US history is ending. A new day has dawned.
Was that before or after he lifted sanctions on Israeli squatters in the West Bank?