NEW YORK: US envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday he expected a breakthrough related to Gaza in the coming days, saying President Donald Trump had presented a plan to regional countries.
Witkoff, a real estate friend of Trump who has become his roving ambassador, said the US president shared ideas when meeting with a group of Arab and Islamic countries Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
“We presented what we call the Trump 21-point plan for peace in the Mideast and Gaza,” Witkoff said.
“I think it addresses Israeli concerns as well as the concerns of all the neighbors in the region,” he told the Concordia summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
“We’re hopeful, and I might say even confident, that in the coming days we’ll be able to announce some sort of breakthrough.”
Witkoff and Trump have repeatedly voiced hope for ending the devastating nearly two-year war.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was more somber on a trip last week to Israel, which has launched massive new offensive to seize Gaza City.
Trump envoy Witkoff expects Middle East ‘breakthrough’ in coming days
https://arab.news/2x9qs
Trump envoy Witkoff expects Middle East ‘breakthrough’ in coming days
- “We presented what we call the Trump 21-point plan for peace in the Mideast and Gaza,” Witkoff said
- “I think it addresses Israeli concerns as well as the concerns of all the neighbors in the region“
Syria accuses Hezbollah of firing shells into its territory
- “The Syrian Arab Army will not tolerate any aggression targeting Syria,” the army said in a statement to SANA
DAMASCUS: Syria said Iran-backed Hezbollah had fired artillery shells into its territory from Lebanon overnight, state media reported on Tuesday, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shia movement.
Syrian army officials said artillery shells fired from Lebanon landed near the town of Serghaya, west of Damascus, the state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.
The army accused Hezbollah of targeting Syrian army positions, telling the news agency it observed Hezbollah reinforcements at the Syrian-Lebanese border.
“The Syrian Arab Army will not tolerate any aggression targeting Syria,” the army said in a statement to SANA.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during US-Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah and Israeli forces have clashed in eastern Lebanon in recent days, and Israel has carried out strikes across Lebanon, including on the capital Beirut.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Hezbollah of working to “collapse” the state, while the head of the group’s parliamentary bloc said it had “no other option... than the option of resistance.”
Hezbollah provided military support to former Syrian president Bashar Assad, who was overthrown in December 2024 by an Islamist coalition hostile to the pro-Iranian Shia movement.
Since then, its supply routes from Syria have been cut off, and Lebanese and Syrian authorities are trying to combat smuggling across the porous border between the two countries.
