US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff will meet officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in Miami this week to discuss Gaza, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.
This meeting on Friday will focus on “the next phase in Gaza”, the official said.
The second phase of the US-crafted, 20-point peace plan is meant to see Israel withdraw its troops from Gaza and the de-radicalisation of the enclave, which has been under Hamas rule since 2007.
Progress in moving towards implementation of the second phase has been slow since the ceasefire took effect in October between Israel and Hamas.
Turkey said Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan would attend the talks. Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty would also be there, Axios reported.
“Turkey will continue to fight determinedly on every front to ensure that what is happening in Gaza is not forgotten, that justice is served,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech on Wednesday.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet President Donald Trump in the US on December 29 for talks on advancing the Gaza ceasefire plan. It is not clear if that meeting will take place at the White House or at Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Mr Trump said in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday that the Gaza truce had brought peace to the Middle East “for the first time in 3,000 years”.
But the ceasefire remains fragile with both sides alleging violations, while mediators fear that both Israel and Hamas are playing for time.
Israel said it had struck and killed the head of weapons production in Hamas's military wing in Gaza last weekend, a move that reportedly sparked Mr Trump to warn of jeopardising the truce.
Mr Witkoff and Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner played a key role in forging the deal to end the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel.
The US pair are also involved in talks to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and will meet Russian officials in Miami over the weekend.
