Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Feb. 2 that he plans to discuss several topics with U.S. President Donald Trump this week, including “victory over Hamas,” expanding diplomatic relations with Arab countries, and countering Iran.
When Netanyahu visits Trump at the White House on Feb. 4, it will be the president’s first meeting with a foreign leader since assuming office for the second time. Meanwhile, U.S. and Arab mediators work towards the next phase of a fragile cease-fire deal to end fighting in the Gaza Strip and return dozens of captive hostages.
Hamas has refused to release additional hostages in the deal’s second stage without an end to the war and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, where the Islamic terrorist group resumed control.
However, Netanyahu has been under pressure from governing partners to continue the war with Hamas after the cease-fire’s first phase ends in March. The prime minister has said that Israel remains committed to conquering Hamas and retrieving the remaining hostages captured in the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that sparked the war.
However, it is uncertain where Trump will stand on the issue. While he has remained a steady supporter of Israel, he has also vowed to end wars in the Middle East while taking credit for the cease-fire deal, which put an end to the fighting and brokered the release of 18 hostages who Hamas had imprisoned for more than 15 months, as well as hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Prior to his Sunday departure, Netanyahu said in a statement that he and Trump will discuss “victory over Hamas, achieving the release of all our hostages and dealing with the Iranian terror axis in all its components,” describing Iran’s alliances with terrorist groups in the Middle East, including Hamas.
By working together, the United States and Israel can “strengthen security, broaden the circle of peace, and achieve a remarkable era of peace through strength,” the prime minister added.
Hamas triggered the war with Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when its terrorists stormed into southern Israel and massacred more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while capturing roughly 250 hostages. More than 100 hostages were released during a November 2023 weeklong cease-fire, while eight were rescued alive. Israeli forces also recovered dozens of bodies of hostages who had perished.
Local Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza claim that Israel’s air and ground war with Hamas has led to the deaths of more than 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of whom were women and children, but they have not said how many were militants. After more than a year of fighting, large portions of Gaza are in ruins, and roughly 90 percent of its 2.3 million people have been displaced.
During the first phase of the cease-fire deal, Hamas is supposed to release a total of 23 hostages, eight of whom have perished, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. That nation’s forces have begun pulling out of most areas in Gaza and have allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to the region’s northern area.
On Monday, negotiations for the cease-fire deal’s second phase are set to begin, where the war would end and the remaining 60 or so hostages would also be released. However, that war could resume in March if the United States, Qatar, and Egypt cannot reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Mideast envoy, joined in the negotiations last month and helped with the agreement. Witkoff met with Netanyahu last week and is expected to begin discussing the cease-fire deal’s second phase in Washington on Monday.
Trump, following his efforts to reach agreements between Israel and four Arab nations during his first administration, is potentially seeking a much broader deal where Israel would ally with Saudi Arabia.
However, Saudi Arabia has resisted similar attempts from the Biden administration and has said it would not accept that kind of deal unless the war ends and Palestinians can have a state in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, territories that Israel has controlled since the 1967 Mideast war.
Yet Netanyahu’s government is opposed to Palestinian statehood, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to leave Israel’s governing coalition if the nation does not resume the war in March. If that happens, early elections could see Netanyahu voted out of office.
