US President Donald Trump presided over a policy meeting Wednesday on the Gaza war, receiving input from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Trump Middle East envoy Jared Kushner, a senior White House official said.

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

While US special envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News a day earlier that Wednesday’s “large meeting” was to discuss the “comprehensive plan” that the administration is putting together for the postwar management of Gaza, the White House official described the session as “simply a policy meeting,” the type frequently held by Trump and his team.

“The White House frequently holds policy meetings on a variety of issues, including Israel and Gaza. We have nothing additional to share at this time,” a White House official told The Times of Israel.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was a key White House adviser in Trump’s first term on Middle East issues. Blair, who was Britain’s prime minister during the 2003 Iraq war, has also been active on Middle East issues.

Blair has been putting together a post-war Gaza plan for the past several months, meeting with various regional stakeholders to get their input and support for his efforts, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel, adding that the former British premier has been in touch with both Kushner and Witkoff.

Blair met Witkoff at the white House in July the same day that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in town to meet Trump, Axios reported. The news site said Kushner was also in Israel earlier this month, during which he met Netanyahu to discuss the ongoing Gaza war.

Also on Wednesday, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer arrived in Washington and held meetings with senior White House officials just before the White House Gaza policy session, the source said, highlighting the close level of coordination between the US and Israel on the matter.

Shortly after the White House meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who was also in Washington and thanked the Trump administration for its support for Israel.

The pair discussed “the issue of Iran following the unprecedented cooperation between the countries to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat and the ‘snapback’ issue, the war on Hamas in Gaza, and the UN General Assembly discussions next month. Cooperation to repel anti-Israeli moves in the international arena was also raised,” according to an Israeli readout.

Axios said that Blair was involved in the post-war plan that Dermer worked on with Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed during the Biden administration. Parts of that proposal were incorporated into a plan that Biden’s secretary of state Antony Blinken presented days before leaving office.

While Trump appears to have downgraded the importance of the Gaza war on his agenda, he has expressed his desire for it to end quickly.

“I can’t watch it anymore. It’s a terrible thing,” one US official speaking to Axios quoted Trump as having said.

At the same time, he seems to be backing Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City, which will likely drag out the conflict for at least several more months while also placing the lives of hostages at risk.

The closest thing to a post-war Gaza plan that Trump has presented to date was in February, when he declared that the US would take over Gaza and permanently relocate all of its Palestinians. While Israel welcomed the idea, it was roundly rejected by US partners in the Middle East that Trump had hoped would be willing to take in Palestinian refugees.

Last month, Trump made headlines when he said he would unveil a new aid plan for Gaza. The White House said the plan would be announced shortly thereafter but never ended up following through. Ultimately, the State Department indicated that the administration would suffice with increasing the number of distribution sites being operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation from three to 16. That expansion has yet to take place, however, and the US has only transferred half of the $30 million pledged for the project, which will likely cost much more.

Witkoff also said Tuesday that the Trump administration’s official position is to oppose additional partial Gaza hostage deals, lining up behind Israel, which has avoided responding to a proposal accepted by Hamas for a phased release of the 50 remaining captives. Twenty of these are believed to be alive, there are grave concerns for the well-being of two, and the Israeli authorities have confirmed the deaths of the 28 others.

Trump himself indicated that this was his administration’s stance when he posted on Truth Social hours after Hamas accepted the Arab mediators’ latest proposal on August 18 that the remaining hostages would only be freed after the terror group has been completely destroyed.

However, the White House said the next day that it was still reviewing the latest phased hostage deal proposal, which is nearly identical to the one that Witkoff crafted several months ago.

Despite Hamas’s acceptance of that proposal, Witkoff said that Hamas was fully responsible for the lack of a deal to date, reiterating that the terrorist organization “slow-played that process” last month when it added new conditions, which led the US and Israel to recall their negotiating teams.

While Israel has since declared that it was no longer interested in phased deals, the Arab mediators worked to bring Hamas down from its new demands by accepting their latest proposal, hoping that Jerusalem would reconsider.

Netanyahu has held his ground, while advancing plans for the Israel Defense Forces to take over Gaza City, an operation that he argues will dismantle Hamas’s last remaining stronghold in the Strip. His critics argue that he had said the same about Israel’s 2024 invasion of Rafah and that a new operation would only further entrench the Hamas insurgency, while hostage families fear the Gaza City offensive will put their loved ones at risk.

Reuters contributed to this report.