(AFP) – US President Donald Trump hosts Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to press the Israeli prime minister to end the war with Hamas in Gaza. Trump has vowed to be tough on Netanyahu as he hopes to use the momentum from the truce between Iran and Israel to secure a ceasefire in the devastated Palestinian territory, too. Trump says Israel is committed to a 60-day halt in fighting and Hamas says it has responded positively to a US-backed proposal — but sealing a final deal to end the 21-month-old war will be easier said than done.
Netanyahu, who is making his third visit to the White House since Trump returned to power in January, has vowed to crush Hamas before ending the conflict. Yet Trump, determined to win the Nobel peace prize and riding a wave of recent foreign and domestic policy victories, is making a renewed push for a result. “There could be a Gaza deal next week,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Friday. He said he was “very optimistic” about a deal but added that “it changes from day to day. It’s been changing for years.”
In response to reports that Hamas had responded positively to proposed truce talks, Trump said “that’s good,” although he said he had not yet been fully briefed on this development. Trump and Netanyahu were in lockstep during the recent Iran-Israel war, which culminated in the US president ordering stealth bombers to strike three crucial Iranian nuclear sites. Washington says the sites were “obliterated” and Iran’s nuclear program put back years, although Iran has denied any significant setback. The West accuses Iran of seeking a nuclear bomb, which Tehran denies.
But on Gaza, Trump is showing signs of increasing unease with the death and destruction still happening as Israel wages the conflict triggered by a huge Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. “We have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza,” Trump said on Friday.
– ‘Grand bargaining’ –
Trump seems to have parked, for now, his extraordinary proposal for a US takeover of Gaza that he floated during Netanyahu’s first visit in February. “I want the people of Gaza to be safe, more importantly,” Trump said when asked about the plan earlier this week. “They’ve been through hell.” Trump has also pushed for the release of hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza. He met one released hostage, Edan Alexander, at the White House on Thursday.
But while the author of the book “Art of the Deal” prides himself on his negotiating skills, Trump in many ways has an equal in Netanyahu, a political survivor of his own ilk. “I think we’re going to see a strategic meeting in the style of ‘grand bargaining’, as Trump likes them,” Michael Horowitz, an independent geopolitical analyst, told AFP. “Even Mr. Netanyahu is aware that we are reaching the end of what can be done in Gaza, and that it is time to plan an exit. Netanyahu surely wants it to be gradual.”
Trump, however, will be pushing for something quicker and more comprehensive. He boasted on the 2024 campaign trail that he would end both the war in Gaza and Russia’s invasion shortly after taking office, but peace in both cases has eluded him so far. Two previous Gaza ceasefires mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States secured temporary halts in fighting and the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, only to break down.
The Hamas attack of October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,338 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
– Danny Kemp with Michael Blum in Jerusalem
© 2024 AFP
