Tony Blair Meets Herzog and Netanyahu to Advance US Gaza Reconstruction Plan

Former British prime minister Tony Blair, a senior representative of US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, held meetings with President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Thursday, as Washington stepped up efforts to breathe new life into its stalled initiative to rebuild the Gaza Strip.

Blair's meeting with Herzog took place at the President's Residence in Jerusalem. The talks were squeezed in between rounds of Herzog's consultations with political parties, which follow last week's election to the 26th Knesset.

According to KAN News, Blair is also set to sit down on Friday with Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar party.

The visit is part of a series of meetings with senior officials focused on pushing forward the next stages of Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza. It comes amid sustained American pressure to advance the initiative, even as negotiations with Hamas remain deadlocked and IDF military operations in the Gaza Strip continue.

Blair is expected to use his meetings to discuss how to move ahead with the initial phases of the American framework. Central to those discussions are the entry of a Palestinian technocratic committee into Gaza and the deployment of an international stabilization force.

Both steps are designed to put alternative governing and security arrangements in place as part of the broader effort to reconstruct the territory.

Under the proposal, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza would take charge of civilian administration and work to restore essential services.

The international force, for its part, would be assigned to help establish security arrangements during the transitional period.