At first glance, Mike Waltz’s visit to Israel this week may look like a new UN ambassador’s routine orientation tour – a series of meetings, border briefings, and handshakes meant to signal continuity. But nothing about the timing or the choreography of this particular visit suggests anything routine.
Waltz’s first major foreign trip since taking office is not just a symbolic gesture. It is the operational rollout of the Trump administration’s Gaza plan, carried out under the umbrella of UN Security Council Resolution 2803, which the US drafted and pushed through.
And the visit comes just days after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly renewed – again – UNRWA’s mandate in a 151-10 vote, with 14 abstentions, that was as lopsided as it was predictable.
Waltz arrived in Israel not simply as a diplomat, but as a political actor with a clear worldview. He is the one who said in his Senate confirmation hearing that UNRWA “must be dismantled,” the one who sees Hamas’s disarmament as non-negotiable, and the one who believes the UN can be used – if steered aggressively – to advance American and Israeli interests rather than constrain them.
His trip is the first real demonstration of how that philosophy may be put into practice.
The tweets Waltz posted during the visit were telling. Crossing from Jordan into Israel over the Allenby-King Hussein Bridge, he wrote that “we are working hard to keep this crossing open for humanitarian aid and commerce,” adding that under President Donald Trump, US commitment to Israel’s security “remains iron-clad.”
Waltz backs IDF in Israel visit
After meeting the family of police St.-Sgt.-Maj. Ran Gvili, the last deceased hostage still held in Gaza, he declared that Hamas “must live up to its commitments and release every single hostage. Period.”
And following a meeting with the UN’s acting Special Coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov, he emphasized that “aid needs to get to those in need and not into Hamas’s hands.” These social media posts – humanitarian access framed through security, hostages framed through moral clarity – reflect the worldview Waltz brought with him.
His perspective was reflected not just in his statements, but in the stops on Waltz’s itinerary. While he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog as expected, his itinerary also included visiting the Kerem Shalom crossing, the Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat, and Israel’s borders.
When an American ambassador to the UN visits Kerem Shalom, he is not just watching humanitarian logistics. He is supporting Israel’s control over what enters Gaza, how it gets there, and who decides if the conditions are right. This is the core of the Trump plan, and Waltz came to make that clear.
To see why Waltz views this moment as so important, consider what he said at a conference in Miami just last week – that just a few months ago, the diplomatic situation was very unstable. The French had their own diplomatic initiative revolving around recognition of a Palestinian state; they had pulled some other G7 countries on board, the war raged, and hostage talks were failing.
Waltz concluded that a single, enforceable framework was needed, and the US-drafted UN Security Council resolution, passed 13–0 without Russian or Chinese vetoes, provided that. He called it the strongest resolution for Israel, “compared to all the others that have come out of [the UN].”
The resolution and its plan put a Board of Peace, led by Trump, at the top of Gaza’s governance. This is backed by financial tools linked to the World Bank and an international stabilization force, which Waltz said several countries are ready to support with troops.
Without this structure, which he said will ultimately result in Hamas’s dismantlement, Gaza will be doomed to the cycle of attacking Israel, destruction, rebuilding, rearming, and more conflict. The Trump plan is meant to break that cycle, not just in theory, but through real steps that Waltz came to see for himself.
All of this happened as the UNRWA mandate was renewed by the UN General Assembly last Friday – over Israeli and US opposition – highlighting the usual gap between what the US and Israel want and what the General Assembly supports.
But that lopsided tally is only the diplomatic layer. The General Assembly can extend mandates, but it does not control what happens on the ground, where Israel still determines crossings, aid vetting, security procedures, and the movement of goods and personnel.
Nothing showed this more clearly than the Israeli police raid on UNRWA’s east Jerusalem compound on Monday, just three days after the UN vote and coming the same day Waltz met with senior Israeli officials. Police and city authorities entered the building, took down the UN flag, raised Israel’s flag, and seized equipment.