Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will begin talks on the second phase of the Gaza truce during his meeting with US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday in Washington, Netanyahu's office announced late this evening, quoted by Reuters and BTA.
Netanyahu and Witkoff spoke today and agreed that the discussions will begin at their meeting in Washington on Monday, the office said in a statement, quoted by Agence France-Presse.
The Israeli prime minister is expected to travel to Washington today, where he is scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House to discuss the situation in Gaza and Israeli hostages held there.
At his meeting with Witkoff, Netanyahu will discuss Israel's position on the ceasefire, the prime minister's office said. Witkoff will then meet with officials from Egypt and Qatar, who have been mediating between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas for the past 15 months with Washington's support.
Last month, Israel and Hamas reached a complex three-phase ceasefire agreement that has halted fighting in Gaza. So far, Hamas has released 18 hostages, who were exchanged for several hundred Palestinians released from Israeli prisons.
There are still more than 70 hostages in Gaza.
The first phase of the ceasefire, which came into effect on January 19, is to last six weeks and aims to secure the release of 33 Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for the release of more than 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
The second phase aims to free the last hostages and put a final end to the war, while the third phase should allow for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and determine a model for governing the small Palestinian territory, AFP recalls.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz agreed Defense Ministry Director General Eyal Zamir to be the new chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA, referring to a statement released late last night by Netanyahu's office.
The appointment was announced nearly two weeks after the previous chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, announced his resignation from the post.
Eyal Zamir - a retired major general who served in the Israeli army for 28 years - will take over an army that has been waging a war in the Gaza Strip for 15 months, while also fighting in Lebanon and countering airstrikes from Iran, Iraq and Yemen. In January, the military launched a large-scale operation in the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and since late December last year, Israeli soldiers have occupied parts of Syria.
Zamir has been deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces since 2018. until 2021. He previously headed the Southern Command, a regional command responsible for military operations and defense, including on the border with the Gaza Strip, and was previously Netanyahu's military secretary. Halevi, appointed chief of staff in 2022, announced his resignation last month, taking responsibility for the serious security failure on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian Islamist group "Hamas" Gaza militants launched a cross-border attack into southern Israel.
Yesterday, Halevi, who will step down on March 6, congratulated Zamir and pledged to ensure a professional handover of command.
Despite public outrage over the October 7 attack, Netanyahu's government has resisted calls to launch a state investigation into its own responsibility for the security failure that killed 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, and took about 250 hostages by Hamas.