Trump envoy Witkoff expects Mideast 'breakthrough' in coming days

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday he expected a breakthrough related to Gaza in the coming days, saying President Donald Trump had presented a plan to regional countries.

Witkoff, a real estate friend of Trump who has become his roving ambassador, said the U.S. president shared ideas when meeting with a group of Arab and Islamic countries Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

"We presented what we call the Trump 21-point plan for peace in the Mideast and Gaza," Witkoff said.

"I think it addresses Israeli concerns as well as the concerns of all the neighbors in the region," he told the Concordia summit on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

"We're hopeful, and I might say even confident, that in the coming days we'll be able to announce some sort of breakthrough."

French President Emmanuel Macron, who also met with Trump on Tuesday, said he expected the plan, which Witkoff did not detail, to include elements he presented to the U.S. president.

Macron has promoted a plan that would include the dismantling of Hamas and an international force to stabilize war-ravaged Gaza.

"The United States is now going to absorb that, so to speak," Macron said in an interview jointly with France 24 and Radio France Internationale.

"I think that if we can align everyone -- the United States, the Arabs, the Europeans -- around this peace plan, we can have a result," Macron said.

Macron also on Monday led a summit that recognized a Palestinian state, an initiative strongly opposed by Trump and Israel.

But Macron said that Trump shared opposition to Israeli annexation of the West Bank, a threat made by right-wing Israeli ministers to scuttle the prospects for a Palestinian state.

"What President Trump told me yesterday was that the Europeans and Americans have the same position," Macron said.

Witkoff and Trump have repeatedly voiced hope for ending the devastating nearly two-year war.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was more somber on a trip last week to Israel, which has launched a massive new offensive to seize Gaza City.