UNITED States envoy Steve Witkoff says he and his colleague Jared Kushner have held “constructive” talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Israel continues its deadly bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip.
In a short statement on Sunday, Witkoff said the “positive” discussion focused on “the continued progress and implementation planning for Phase 2 of President Trump’s 20-Point Plan for Gaza”, which the US and Israel are advancing in “close partnership”.
Witkoff added “broader regional issues” were also discussed in the meeting on Saturday, a likely reference to heightened tensions between the US and Iran and speculation that Washington and Tel Aviv may still yet attack Iran as they did during the 12-day June war against Tehran.
Israel, in the meantime, continues bombarding Gaza despite agreeing to a ceasefire in its genocidal war, committing near-daily violations of the October 10 agreement brokered by the US.
Medical sources say at least three Palestinians have been killed and many others wounded throughout the day.
Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the sounds of Israeli gunfire and shelling coming from the eastern part of the Gaza Strip were almost non-stop on Sunday.
Further north, local sources in Jabalia refugee camp reported a drone attack on a medical facility that is located next to the so-called yellow line that separates Israeli- and Palestinian-controlled zones. Israeli military vehicles also unleashed heavy fire east of Jabalia and fired artillery shells in various areas of the town.
The extent of possible casualties was not immediately clear. “It’s a very difficult situation right now, and it’s unsafe for paramedics and Palestinian Civil Defence crew members to reach the area,” Mahmoud said.
More than 480 Palestinians have been killed and 1,321 others wounded in Israeli attacks since October 11, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. Israeli attacks have killed 71,657 people and wounded 171,399 others in Gaza since October 7, 2023, the ministry says.
Amid the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, the enclave’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt is expected to reopen in the coming days in both directions, the head of Gaza’s technocratic committee Ali Shaath said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday.
“Opening Rafah signals that Gaza is no longer closed to the future and to the war,” Shaath said.
The reopening of Rafah would mark the fulfillment of a key tenet of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, which called for allowing people to flow through Gaza’s main gateway to the outside world in both directions.
Ahmed al-JoJo, a Palestinian living in Gaza, has spent more than a year separated from his fiancee after she crossed into Egypt – unknowingly departing just days before the checkpoint closed indefinitely.
“I lived through all the stages that followed her departure – alone without her, and without any motivation for life,” he told Al Jazeera.
Opening the crossing “would be a solution, but only a partial one”, he noted.
“This is the impact of the war, and what it has done to us,” al-Jojo said. “It’s separated us. The first step is for me to leave through the crossing.”
But Palestinians have previously waited out rumours of reopenings that never came to fruition. There is also widespread suspicion that Israel will use Rafah as a one-way exit that will aid in ethnic cleansing.
Israeli officials, for their part, have insisted that the full reopening be conditioned on the return of the one remaining deceased captive, as well as the disarmament of Hamas.