#tony-blair

#tony-blair

Blair, as prime minister of the United Kingdom, helped negotiate a 1998 peace deal ending decades of sectarian fighting in Northern Ireland. He later served as a Middle East peace envoy for the international community, and now runs a London think tank. But the 72-year-old former politician comes with baggage: He's reviled in the U.K. and internationally for his 2003 decision to join President George W. Bush's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The plan wants all 48 captives still held in Gaza to be released immediately, in exchange for allowing entry of humanitarian aid, freezing battle lines, and the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli military jails. The plan would also see Hamas disarm, offer fighters who renounce violence amnesty, and allow others who refuse to leave Gaza.

The former UK Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair has been involved in discussions about running a transitional authority in Gaza if there is a ceasefire, the BBC understands. Sir Tony, who took the UK into the Iraq War in 2003, has been in high-level planning talks with all parties to end the war and on the post-conflict future for the Palestinian territory, it is understood.

The White House meeting came after the Israeli military warned Palestinians that the evacuation of Gaza City was "inevitable", as its forces prepare to conquer it. Israeli tanks pushed into a new area of the city overnight, destroying houses and forcing more residents to flee, witnesses said. Thousands of people have already moved because of recent Israeli advances - mostly to other parts of the city, where about a million Palestinians still live.