The former prime minister has reportedly been helping to work on a post-war plan for Gaza for months
Tony Blair has attended White House talks with Donald Trump to discuss post-war plans for Gaza, it has been reported.
The meeting on Wednesday also saw input from former Trump Middle East envoy Jared Kushner, a senior White House official told the Reuters news agency.
Trump, top White House officials, Blair and Kushner discussed the hostage crisis, plans to escalate food aid deliveries, post-war plans and more, the official said.
The session was described as “simply a policy meeting,” the type frequently held by Trump and his team.
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was a key White House adviser on Middle East in Trump’s first term.
After stepping down as prime minister, Blair held the role of special envoy for the Quartet on the Middle East, a position he held until 2015.
US outlet Axios said Blair has been discussing a post-war plan for Gaza with Kushner and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff for several months.
It reported that Blair met Witkoff at the White House in July on the same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Trump, citing sources.
Trump had promised a quick end to the war in Gaza during his presidential campaign but a resolution has been elusive seven months into his second term.
Trump’s term began with a ceasefire which lasted two months, until Israeli strikes killed around 400 Palestinians on 18 March.
More recently, images of starving Palestinians in Gaza, including children, have shocked the world and fed criticism of U.S. ally Israel over the deteriorating conditions.
In February, Trump proposed a US takeover of Gaza and a permanent displacement of Palestinians from the coastal territory. The plan was globally condemned and labeled as an “ethnic cleansing” proposal by rights experts and the United Nations. Forcible displacement is illegal under international law.
Trump cast the plan, which he has not publicly mentioned in recent weeks, as a re-development idea to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The plan echoed an idea that Kushner floated a year earlier to clear Gaza of its Palestinian inhabitants and turn it into a waterfront property.
In July the Financial Times reported that the Tony Blair Institute participated in a project to develop a post-war Gaza plan.
The think-tank had said it “has had many calls with different groups on post-war reconstruction of Gaza but none have included the idea of forcible relocation of people from Gaza.”
With agencies
