Washington has reportedly been pressing West Jerusalem to open the Rafah crossing between the enclave and Egypt<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff said he has had \u201cpositive\u201d discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on advancing the Washington-brokered 20-point peace plan for Gaza. The talks come against the backdrop of continuing Israeli military operations in the Palestinian enclave despite the ceasefire.
\nWitkoff and Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner traveled to Israel immediately after the trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine talks held in the UAE over two days this week.\u00a0\u00a0
\nThe talks with Netanyahu revolved around \u201cthe continued progress and implementation planning for Phase 2 of President Trump\u2019s 20-Point Plan for Gaza,\u201d the special envoy said in a brief statement on Sunday. The \u201cpositive\u201d discussion also involved \u201cbroader regional issues,\u201d Witkoff said without elaborating, apparently referring to ongoing tensions connected with Iran and the potentially looming American military action against the country.
\nThe US delegation reportedly pressed the Israeli leadership to move on to Phase 2 of the peace plan, namely reopening the Rafah border crossing, linking the Palestinian enclave to Egypt. Israel has been reluctant to implement this step, attempting to tie it with the disarmament of Hamas, as well as the return of the body of the last deceased hostage, believed to be still held by the militant group.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s Board of Peace: Bold reset or bypass of Palestine?<\/p>\n
Israel purportedly wants the population to be able to leave Gaza through the border crossing while limiting entries from Egypt, while the US insists it should operate freely in both directions as originally agreed. Washington\u2019s approach has reportedly angered top Israeli officials, with some accusing Witkoff of acting as a \u201cQatari lobbyist\u201d and playing into the hands of T\u00fcrkiye, which has sought to represent Palestinian interests and Gaza in particular.\u00a0
\n\u201cWe hope Ran Gvili is returned this week and we can go forward,\u201d an unnamed Israeli official told Ynet news site, referring to the last deceased hostage.\u00a0
\nThe American visit came as hostilities continued in Gaza despite the ceasefire implemented under Phase 1 of Trump\u2019s plan in early October. Gunfire and explosions were heard in the east throughout Sunday, multiple media reports indicated. At least three Palestinians were killed and four others injured, according to local health authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington has reportedly been pressing West Jerusalem to open the Rafah crossing between the enclave and Egypt US President Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff said he has had \u201cpositive\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}