US President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House for the second time in 24 hours to discuss a possible ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
The unforeseen talks on Tuesday evening lasted just over an hour, without access to the media, and came when the Israeli forces killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza.
The two men had also met for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday, during the third visit to Netanyahu in the United States since the president began his second term on January 20.
Before the talks on Tuesday, Trump said that he would speak with Netanyahu “almost exclusively” about Gaza.
“We have to solve this. Gaza is-it’s a tragedy, and he wants to solve it, and I want to solve it, and I think the other side wants it,” he said.
Mike Hanna from Tel Aviv Tribune, postponing Washington, DC, said that “very little information” came out of the latest discussions, so “it was difficult to determine exactly what’s going on”.
“But the fact that he was so tightly sealed, the fact that there was no clear reading of what was discussed, the fact that the meeting lasted a little more than an hour – all this can indicate that there is a kind of sticking, something that obscures the optimistic position that the two leaders have adopted in the past 24 hours,” said Hanna.
Shortly before Trump met Netanyahu, his special envoy in the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, suggested that a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is near and said that Washington hopes to see a finalized agreement by the end of the week.
He said that the problems prevented from Israel and Hamas to accept had one of four.
“We hope that at the end of this week, we will have an agreement that will take us to a 60-day ceasefire. Ten live hostages will be published. Nine deceased will be released,” Witkoff told journalists at a meeting of Trump.
But Netanyahu, speaking shortly after, at a meeting with the president of the House of Republican controls, said that the Israel campaign in the Palestinian enclave has not been finished and that the negotiators “certainly work” on a cease-fire.
“We still have to finish work in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy the military and government capacities of Hamas,” said the Israeli chief.
Israel’s plan for Gaza
Nour Odeh of Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Jordan, said that Israeli media claim that Netanyahu was faced with Trump’s “extreme pressure” to conclude an agreement on Gaza.
“But still, there was no breakthrough,” she said from the Jordanian capital, Amman.
“Israeli media also speak of a delay in Witkoff’s travel plans in Doha, although earlier in the night, it seemed very optimistic about the possibility of concluding an agreement. Because according to him, only one problem has remained problematic-which is:” Where does the Israeli army redistiff? “” “Said Odeh.
“Now this is important because Israel wants to maintain control of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. According to the Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel plans to build a tent city in Rafah, where he will concentrate the population, the control that enters, will not allow anyone to leave, then reject the population of Gaza to take the implementation, according to Israel.
The plan described by the Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, calls for the forced initial transfer of some 600,000 Palestinians to the tent city, followed by the rest of the 2.1 million people in the enclave.
Critics say that the plan would then cause Palestinians forcibly transferred to other countries.
Annelle Sheline, a researcher in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute, described tents cities as “concentration camps” and said that the Trump administration would not be likely to intervene in the Israeli plan.
“Washington has a significant influence on details, although we have seen Trump furious when he supports the transfer of the involuntary transfer of Gaza Palestinians, saying that people should turn to Nanyahu for this,” said Sheline.
“We know that people that Trump surrounds himself, tend to be sycophants and people who tell him what he likes to hear. So, I do not expect there to be many people in Trump’s orbit who tell him, not only would it be a horrible crime against humanity, not only to facilitate that all this “would then print the United States”.
For his part, Trump strongly supported Netanyahu, even doing the national Israeli policy by criticizing prosecutors for a trial of corruption against the Israeli chief on the accusations of corruption, fraud and violation of the struggle, which Netanyahu denies.
Netanyahu congratulated Trump, saying that there has never been a closer coordination between the United States and Israel in the history of his country, and even named the American leader for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The War of Israel in Gaza killed at least 57,575 Palestinians and injured 136,879 others. Most of the Gaza population has been moved by the war, and almost half a million people are faced with famine in a few months, according to the United Nations.
It is estimated that 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023 and more than 200 were taken in captivity.
About fifty captives remain in Gaza, with 20 that would be alive.
