Former British prime minister Tony Blair, a senior envoy of US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem on Thursday, November 5, as Washington stepped up efforts to revive its stalled plan for the Gaza Strip, the Haaretz newspaper reported.

Source: Haaretz via GeoXAxis

Blair met Herzog at the President's Residence in Jerusalem and held separate talks with Netanyahu, according to Israel's KAN News. He was also expected to meet Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot on Friday, November 6 — a meeting Haaretz said is intended to establish a working relationship with the former army chief who is now at the centre of Israel's coalition talks.

i24News reported that the meetings were aimed at advancing the deployment of an international force to Gaza under Trump's plan. KAN reported that Blair is expected to discuss the first steps of the American framework, including the entry of a Palestinian technocratic committee into Gaza and the deployment of an international stabilisation force.

Source: i24News

A plan that has been stuck for months

Trump's plan, overseen by the Board of Peace that Trump himself chairs and on whose founding executive Blair has sat since January, envisages a non-political Palestinian technocratic committee running Gaza's daily services under international supervision. According to a United Nations report in September 2026, the committee had still not entered Gaza and the international force had still not deployed, more than a year after the US-brokered ceasefire of October 2025 took effect.

The wider ceasefire remains stalled on the same questions Blair came to discuss: the disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups, which Israel says must be guaranteed by the new security arrangements, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, who Reuters reported in early November still control a substantial portion of the territory while displaced Palestinians remain concentrated in the remaining areas.

Blair's visit lands in the middle of Israel's own government-formation contest, which Awaaz Punjab has been tracking as the recommendations for Eisenkot and Netanyahu reach Herzog. Read: Eisenkot at 67 recommendations, Netanyahu at 46

Herzog has been consulting party leaders since November 4 and is expected to name a candidate to form the next government on Sunday, November 8, with a legal deadline around November 11. The Democrats party has recommended Eisenkot, and Ynet's count gives him a Knesset majority of recommendations — which is why Blair's working relationship with him matters to Washington whichever man forms the government.

What happens next

What happens next turns on three dates: Blair's meeting with Eisenkot on Friday, Herzog's choice of a prime-ministerial candidate on Sunday, and whether the technocratic committee and stabilisation force — the two first steps of Trump's framework — finally get Israeli agreement to enter Gaza. Neither Netanyahu's office nor Hamas has announced any new commitment after Thursday's meetings, and the disarmament dispute that has held the ceasefire in place without a political settlement remains unresolved.