Trump meets UK ex-PM Blair on post-war Gaza

President Donald Trump was presiding over a policy meeting on the Gaza war on Wednesday with input from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Trump West Asia envoy Jared Kushner, a senior White House official said.

Trump, top White House officials, Blair and Kushner were discussing all aspects of the Gaza issue, including escalating food aid deliveries, the hostage crisis, post-war plans and more, the official said.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was a key White House adviser in Trump’s first term on West Asia issues. Blair was prime minister during the 2003 Iraq war. US special envoy Steve Witkoff previewed the meeting in an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday. He said the US was aiming for a resolution by the year-end.

This comes as Israel’s military has called the evacuation of Gaza City “inevitable” ahead of a new offensive and no signs of a ceasefire were in sight.

There is mounting outrage over this week’s double Israeli strike on a southern Gaza hospital that killed journalists, emergency responders and others. The toll from the attack on Nasser Hospital rose to 22 after two more people died Wednesday, Gaza health officials said.

The Israeli military, which has said it will investigate, offered no immediate explanation for striking twice and no evidence for an assertion that six of the dead were militants.

Later in the day, all United Nations Security Council members, except the US agreed the famine in Gaza was a “manmade crisis”.