Gaza is a 'really rough place to go back to,' Special Envoy to Middle East Witkoff says
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Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff joins 'Sunday Morning Futures' to weigh in on peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, the next phase in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, and his visit to Gaza.
Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff issued a warning to families over their return to Gaza. The Trump administration official, who visited the territory, described the state of destruction on ‘Sunday Morning Futures' and urged people against returning over concerns for their safety.
MARIA BARTIROMO: … Can you tell us a bit about what you witnessed, including seeing some of those caves and tunnels?
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STEVE WITKOFF: … I felt it was important for me to go to Gaza. And why? Because phase one, the execution of phase one was an accomplishment. It brought a lot of people together who needed to work hard to get that accomplished, but what was always going to be more complicated was the implementation of phase one, which meant the Nazarene line, the Philadelphia corridor, how people are crossing, how they were going to be, how security procedures would be instituted, and a small little blow up on phase one could have ended all of phase one. So we so far have been able to successfully navigate that, and I felt that there was no way to navigate it unless you were somebody [who] was actually on premises in Gaza.
What I saw there was alarming. It's completely devastated, and that begs the question, should people be allowed in there in those sorts of dangerous conditions? Thank God we've had no incidents, but there's 30,000 unexploded shells throughout Gaza and the buildings are all down. It's utter destruction. There's all kinds of issues. This affects, by the way, phase three, which is the theoretical reconstruction of Gaza. We're going to have to get to a reconstruction, but the devil will be in the details on the master plan, on how we examine everything subterranean which has been blown up. So lots of issues with that. With all of that said, I also saw a film of what happened on October 7th, and that was a horrific film. So I've got some context and that was important for me to have.
Destroyed buildings are pictured in the west of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 11, 2025 amid the current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas (BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images)
MARIA BARTIROMO: … President Trump spoke with the king of Jordan, who did agree to accept sick children. But the others and largely all of the regional partners said that they really do not want to accept those people who are living in Gaza right now.
STEVE WITKOFF: … I think Gaza is a really rough place to go back to. I think that families going back there thinking that there's an easy reconstruction process, that they've been on some level deceived, and I think that's part of President Trump's message that we don't want people going back there, being injured, being hurt, God forbid, being killed, because a building falls down on them inadvertently or, God forbid, they, a child playing in the streets touches an unexploded munition, and it explodes, and he loses his hands or his arms or any one of these, you know, terrible things that could happen.
That's kind of the point, and I think that the president's solution is how do we address where people, where 2 million people can go… And I think the obvious answers are in some respects, Egypt; in some respects, Jordan; but in some respects, other countries who have called us up and voluntarily said, ‘this is a humanitarian effort, we want to help you. We want to participate in this humanitarian effort.' And I think that's to be commended.
This article was written by Fox News staff.
