US envoy Witkoff to visit Israel this week to discuss ‘next steps’
Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, will visit Israel to “discuss next steps” on Gaza. Follow updates.
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Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, will visit Israel on Thursday to “discuss next steps” on Gaza, an American official said.
Witkoff has been involved in indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
The discussions broke down last week when Israel and the US recalled their delegations from Doha.
Mr Netanyahu announced the following day that Israel, together with its US allies, was “considering alternative options to bring our hostages home.”
“Special Envoy Witkoff will travel to Israel Thursday, where he will meet with officials to discuss next steps in addressing the situation in Gaza,” a US official told AFP, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Through more than 21 months of fighting, both Israel and Hamas have clung to long-held positions, preventing two short-lived truces from being converted into a lasting ceasefire.
For Israel, dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities is non-negotiable, while Hamas demands firm guarantees on a lasting truce, a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and the free flow of aid into Gaza.
Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 60,034 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Of the 251 hostages taken during the attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
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EU SENDS AID TO GAZA AS DEATH TOLL TOPS 60,000
France and Germany are set to air-drop aid into Gaza in the coming days as UN-backed experts warned the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory is slipping into a “worst case scenario of famine”.
It comes as the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said the Palestinian death toll in the nearly 22-month war had topped 60,000.
Concern has escalated in the past week about hunger in the Gaza Strip after more than 21 months of war, with The World Food Programme, UNICEF and the Food and Agriculture Organisation warning time was running out and that Gaza was “on the brink of a full-scale famine”.
“We need to flood Gaza with large-scale food aid, immediately and without obstruction, and keep it flowing each and every day to prevent mass starvation,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain said in a joint statement from the agencies.
France will air-drop 40 tonnes of aid into Gaza from Friday, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.
“We will organise, starting from Friday, and in close co-ordination with the Jordanian authorities, four flights carrying 10 tonnes of supplies each for the Gaza Strip,” Mr Barrot told BFMTV television.
Aid groups have warned that “mass starvation” is spreading among the territory’s more than two million residents.
Israel has in recent days allowed more aid trucks into the Gaza Strip but aid agencies said Israeli authorities could still do more to speed security checks and open more border posts.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also said Germany would work with Jordan to airlift humanitarian aid to Gaza, co-ordinating this “very closely with France and the United Kingdom”.
“This work may only make a small contribution to humanitarian aid, but it sends an important signal: We are here, we are in the region,” Merz said.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) – a grouping of NGOs and institutions that serves as the world’s main monitor for gauging malnutrition – said famine in Gaza had reached the “worst-case scenario”.
The alert did not amount to a declaration of a full-scale famine, but was intended to draw “urgent attention to food security” and “prompt immediate action”, it said.
Urgent “unimpeded” humanitarian access into Gaza was the only way to stop rapidly rising “starvation and death”, it added.
NYT ISSUES CLARIFICATION OVER VIRAL PHOTO
The New York Times has issued a clarification over a photo of a child in Gaza the newspaper claimed was suffering “severe malnutrition” after it emerged the boy had a pre-existing condition.
The heartbreaking photo of Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, also published by other outlets including NBC News, The Guardian, and BBC, was put up as evidence of starvation in Gaza as a result of Israel’s war against Hamas.
But pro-Israel journalist David Collier said little Muhammad has “cerebral palsy, hypoxaemia, and was born with a serious genetic disorder,” citing a May 2025 medical report from Gaza.
In a post on X, The New York Times said the newspaper had added an Editors’ Note to its story.
See the statement below.
We have appended an Editors' Note to a story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza who was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. After publication, The Times learned that he also had pre-existing health problems. Read more below. pic.twitter.com/KGxP3b3Q2B
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 29, 2025
UK AID AIR-DROPPED INTO GAZA
Meanwhile, the UK carried out its first air drop of aid into Gaza on Wednesday morning (AEST).
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said “the first air drops of British aid” were landing Tuesday (local time) “containing around half a million pounds worth of lifesaving supplies”.
“The Palestinian people have endured terrible suffering now in Gaza because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand,” Starmer said in a televised address, adding “the suffering must end”.
GAZA CIVIL DEFENCE SAYS ISRAEL STRIKES KILL 30
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) that Israeli air strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians, including women and children, in the central Nuseirat district.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the strikes were carried out overnight and into the morning and “targeted a number of citizens’ homes” in Nuseirat refugee camp.
The camp’s Al-Awda Hospital said it had received “the bodies of 30 martyrs, including 14 women and 12 children”.
The Israeli military said it had “struck several terror targets in the central Gaza Strip”, but that the number of reported casualties “does not align with the information held by the (military)”.
The Al-Awda Hospital later reported that 13 people had been killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting near an aid distribution point on Gaza’s main north-south route, Salah al-Din Road.
The Israeli military said it was “not aware of casualties as a result of (army) fire adjacent to the distribution site in the central Gaza Strip”.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said the overall death toll from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza had now reached 60,034, the majority of them civilians.
– with AFP
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