US delegation led by Steve Witkoff due to arrive in Egypt for Gaza talks | Gaza

A US delegation led by envoy Steve Witkoff was due to arrive in Egypt on Tuesday to reinforce President Donald Trump’s involvement in the newly restarted negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at ending the war in Gaza

The indirect talks at Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort city on the Red Sea, entered their second day on the two-year anniversary of the Hamas surprise attack into Israel that triggered the bloody conflict.

Last week, Trump announced a 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza that was accepted in its broad outlines by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Hamas as a basis for further talks. Both sides expressed multiple reservations and are seeking substantial changes to many of its currently ill-defined provisions, however.

Trump on Tuesday said there was a “real chance” of a deal as he met the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, in the White House.

Badr Abdelatty, the Egyptian foreign minister, said the main current focus of the talks was establishing a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages and a number of Palestinian prisoners.

He said the parties were also discussing maps showing areas from where Israeli forces would withdraw in the first phase, which also includes “full and unconditional” delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza through the UN.

Ahead of the resumption of talks on Tuesday, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for an end to the hostilities, which have created “a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale that defied comprehension”.

During the attack on 7 October 2023, Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage, of whom 47 remain captive in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.

The Israeli offensive that followed has killed more than 67,000 people, mostly civilians, injured more than 170,000 and reduced much of Gaza to rubble.

Trump’s plan has received widespread international backing, including in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

In Washington, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, would talk part in the talks and keep the president apprised. It is important “that we get this done quickly”, she said.

Netanyahu said talks would be “confined to a few days maximum” and Trump has said that Hamas must move quickly, “or else all bets will be off”.

Many uncertainties remain, however, including over the demand that Hamas disarm, the extent of the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the future governance of Gaza.

On Tuesday, Fawzi Barhoum, a senior Hamas official, said in a televised speech that the group’s delegation was seeking to “surmount all obstacles” to reaching a settlement, adding also that its 2023 attack on Israel was a “historic response” to “attempts to eradicate the Palestinian cause”.

Netanyahu has long said Hamas must surrender and disarm, but this has become one of the most contentious parts of Trump’s plan, which calls for the eradication of Hamas’s “military infrastructure”.

However, it is unclear if this will be defined as including light weapons, which Hamas fighters will be extremely unwilling to give up.

Underlining the obstacles lying ahead at the talks, an umbrella of Palestinian factions, including Hamas, issued a statement vowing a “resistance stance by all means” and saying “no one has the right to cede the weapons of the Palestinian people.”

The plan envisions an international security force being put in place in Gaza, possibly composed of Arab or Muslim troops. The territory would then be placed under a technocratic committee and international governance, with Trump and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, in oversight roles. Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, has said it wants to hand over to a politically independent Palestinian body.

Osama Hamdan, a second Hamas official, told Al Araby television network that Hamas would refuse foreign administration of Gaza and that the entry of foreign forces would be “unacceptable”.

Under the plan, Israel would also free 250 Palestinians serving life sentences in its prisons and 1,700 people detained from Gaza since the war began, including all women and children. There are likely to be fierce disagreements over who exactly is released.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday that Israel should have ceased operations in Gaza already, in line with the plan, and was cautious on the prospects of the talks, which come after multiple failed efforts to bring the war to a close.

Ceasefires arranged in November 2023 and January 2025 both collapsed, the first after two weeks, the second after two months.

“I have no doubt that this round of negotiations is a process in which all parties are strongly committed to reaching a consensus, but there are many details to consider,” he said, adding that the plan’s clauses “require practical interpretation on the ground”.

Trump has called on Israel to suspend all hostilities in Gaza, posting last week on his Truth Social platform: “Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!”

In Gaza City, residents said Israeli attacks continued until the early hours of the morning on Tuesday, though there were no immediate reports of casualties. A rocket was reportedly launched from northern Gaza into Israel but caused no damage or injuries.

Part of the plan is to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza, where more than 2 million Palestinians are facing hunger and, in some areas, famine.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the organisation was ready to act.

“The machinery is cranked up and ready to go as soon as we get the green light. There are many thousands of metric tonnes in the pipeline of goods ready to enter from Jordan, the Israeli port of Ashdod and elsewhere,” Dujarric said.