Former UK PM Tony Blair joins Gaza summit

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was in attendance at the Gaza summit in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, the Middle East Eye plus agencies reported on October 13th.

US President Donald Trump told reporters at the summit that he wanted to “find out that he [Blair] is an acceptable choice to everybody.”

It was previously reported on October 1st that Blair was under consideration to lead a post-war Gaza, where Gaza would be governed by a board of billionaires and business people, while politically “neutral” Palestinian administrators would be in lower positions of power.

Hamas official, Basem Naim, said his group objected to the possibility of Blair governing a post-war Gaza Strip, telling Sky News: “When it comes to Tony Blair, unfortunately, we Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, and maybe others around the world have bad memories of him.”

Naim added: “We can still remember his role in killing, causing thousands or millions of deaths to innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The Palestinian Authority’s justice minister, Sharhabeel al-Zaeem, was also sceptical about Blair’s involvement in Gaza. Al-Zaeem said: “All these struggles for all these years in order to have Mr Blair, who failed in London, who failed in Britain, who failed in Iraq, come and – with all due respect at a personal level to Mr Blair – be our guardian as if we were minors?”

These comments referenced the former prime minister’s support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which some critics say violated international law. Many have called for Blair to be prosecuted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Britain’s role in the Iraq invasion.

Blair reportedly participated in US-led talks concerning plans for a post-war Gaza, as reported on August 28th; he reportedly attended alongside Jared Kushner, a strong supporter of Israel who is also Trump’s son-in-law and his former senior advisor.

Kushner, who has reportedly been a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the 1990s, previously caused controversy over comments he made during a February 15th, 2024, interview at Harvard University, where he called for the expulsion of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents and said that a “waterfront property could be very valuable.”

Blair has also been accused of wanting to expel Palestinians from Gaza, having previously been at the centre of an Israeli initiative to resettle Gazan residents outside of the enclave.

However, Blair denied these allegations, and his spokesperson said: “Reports that Mr Blair has anything to do with the voluntary evacuation of Gazans is simply not true; there has been no such discussion, nor would he consider it.”

Middle East Eye, Sky News, Maghrebi.org