Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been named as a candidate to lead an international administration for Gaza under US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war, is expected to visit Egypt in the coming days to present his vision, The New Arab's sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has reported.
Blair is scheduled to meet Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and General Intelligence chief Hassan Rashad to discuss the proposal, a senior Egyptian diplomatic source told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
The visit was reportedly arranged through Emirati mediation during UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed's trip to Cairo earlier this week, with the aim of giving Blair an opportunity to lay out his ideas.
The source said Egypt had rejected the US proposal for the administration's headquarters to be based in the Egyptian city of El-Arish in North Sinai.
The revised plan, updated after Trump's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, envisages Blair serving as executive head of the international body.
Cairo has instead pushed amendments emphasising that Gaza should be run by a purely Palestinian authority, excluding Hamas, through a technocratic "community support committee" model.
Al-Araby Al-Jadeed also reported that Palestinian factions meeting on the Trump plan debated whether to reject it outright, accept it with amendments, or conditionally endorse it while seeking clarifications and guarantees.
One option raised was to agree without objections if Washington formally recognised a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders - a scenario some participants viewed positively, as it could shift pressure back onto the US and Israel.
However, the US has shown no signs of accepting this, despite recent recognitions of Palestine by some of its allies, such as France, Britain, and Canada.
A senior Hamas source said that any proposal involving disarmament of the group, removal of its military capabilities, or renunciation of the right to resist occupation without a Palestinian state and full Israeli withdrawal was "worthless and cannot be built upon".
The source added that such terms violate international law, which upholds the right of occupied peoples to resist and to determine their own future.
Blair's controversial record
Blair’s possible role in Trump's so-called 'Board of Peace' for Gaza has been greeted sceptically across the Middle East, with many viewing bringing in a former British leader to oversee Palestinians as carrying colonial overtones, especially given his track record in the region.
As a key architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Blair is widely remembered as having misled the British public over weapons of mass destruction and unleashing a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
His years as Quartet envoy on Middle East peace were also judged a disappointment, with Palestinian officials complaining that his sympathies were with Israel and that he had lobbied against their UN statehood bid.
Blair himself later admitted that the international community should have sought dialogue with Hamas after its 2006 election victory, rather than backing a boycott that deepened divisions and contributed to Hamas's eventual takeover of Gaza.
Blair has also faced scrutiny over the overlap between his political roles and private ventures. While serving as Quartet envoy, he maintained lucrative consulting and advisory contracts with Arab governments and financial institutions such as JP Morgan, reportedly earning over $1 million annually.