(MENAFN) US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is reportedly preparing to meet with Hamas chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, according to reports. While the exact timing of the meeting has not been confirmed, sources indicate that plans are still subject to change. The discussions are expected to focus on the ceasefire in Gaza that has been in place since October.

The proposed meeting highlights Witkoff’s willingness to engage with Hamas despite criticism from both Israeli and American officials, who argue that such engagement could lend the group undeserved legitimacy, according to reports. Neither the White House nor Hamas has publicly commented on the planned meeting.

This would not be the first encounter between Witkoff and al-Hayya. The two previously met in October, ahead of the Gaza ceasefire, and reportedly bonded over a shared personal tragedy.

Witkoff lost his son Andrew to an opioid overdose in 2011, while Himam al-Hayya, the son of Khalil al-Hayya, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Doha, Qatar, in September.

“I told him that I had lost a son,” Witkoff recalled in a televised interview, “and that we were both members of a really bad club, parents who have buried children.”

The meeting is expected to center on maintaining and possibly strengthening the ceasefire arrangements in Gaza.

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