US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff is expected to visit Israel for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, two senior Israeli officials said Monday.
His visit is expected to begin on Tuesday, they said. It comes amid heightened regional tensions with Iran and as the Trump administration presses ahead with its plan to end the Israel-Hamas War.
Additionally, as the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan has officially begun, Israel fully reopened the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Monday for people on foot, a day after rolling out a limited pilot test to address unforeseen logistical issues.
Collectively, the Sunday-Monday rollout now allows Palestinians to leave the enclave and to let back in certain Gazans who fled during the war.
In addition, Zamir’s recent visit to Washington, DC, included highly discreet meetings with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and his entire senior team, two senior diplomatic sources told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. It was one of the most significant working channels in Israel-US relations, they said.
The meetings took place at the Pentagon and were held behind closed doors. The details were kept tightly controlled on both sides, consistent with public reporting that Zamir had held a secret weekend visit and met senior US defense officials.
A growing axis: IDF, CENTCOM, and the Joint Chiefs
According to one source, a three-part operational and strategic axis has taken shape among Zamir, US Central Command Commander Adm. Brad Cooper, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The channel has produced frequent engagement, including periodic meetings that sometimes have occurred on a near-weekly basis.
Publicly, Zamir has held recent meetings with Cooper, including during Cooper’s late-January trip to Israel.
Top US and Iranian officials are due to meet to hold talks on a possible nuclear deal, while Iran’s military chief threatened that “no American would be safe” if the US conducted strikes on Iran, media outlets reported Monday.
Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are expected to meet in Istanbul on Friday to discuss a possible nuclear deal, two sources with knowledge of the plans told Axios’s Barak Ravid on Monday.
A meeting on Friday was the “best-case scenario,” a third source said, adding that nothing is final until it happens.
This was later corroborated by an anonymous US official, who said Trump has been “calling for them [Iran] to make a deal,” Reuters reported. “The meeting is to hear what they have to say.”
Potential negotiations between the two countries might take place within the next few days, involving senior officials from both countries, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported earlier on Monday. The report did not mention a time or location of the meeting.
“No American would be safe” if conflict broke out, Tasnim quoted the commander of Iran’s military as saying.
Yonah Jeremy Bob, Lara Sukster Mosheyof, and James Genn contributed to this report.