Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he will discuss his country’s self-declared “victory over Hamas,” countering Iranian aggression and expanding diplomatic relations with Arab countries as he meets this week with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
Trump Tuesday is set to greet Netanyahu, the first foreign head of state he is meeting with since taking office for a second four-year term two weeks ago. Trump has been a long-time ally of Netanyahu and dispatched his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to help broker the current six-week ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas and hostage-for-prisoner exchange.
But even as the militants have freed 18 hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, difficult negotiations lie ahead on the second phase of the truce.
Hamas, a U.S. designated terror group, has quickly reasserted its control over Gaza since the ceasefire took hold last month, despite Israel saying it would not allow that to occur. The militants have said they will not release more hostages slated to go free in the second phase of the truce without an end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the narrow territory along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Netanyahu is under mounting pressure from far-right governing partners to resume the war after the first phase of the truce ends in early March.
It’s not clear where Trump stands.
Trump has been a staunch supporter of Israel but also pledged to end wars in the Middle East and took credit for helping to broker the ceasefire agreement.
Netanyahu has said Israel is still committed to a full victory over Hamas and the return of all the hostages captured in the militants’ shock October 7, 2023, attack that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 250 hostages. Several dozen remain in Hamas hands, both living and dead.
Israel’s counteroffensive during 15 months of warfare has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children. Israel’s military says the death toll includes 17,000 militants it has killed.
Even with the ceasefire, periodic attacks are still occurring.
An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in central Gaza wounded five people on Sunday, including a child who was in critical condition, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. The Israeli military said it fired upon the vehicle because it was bypassing a checkpoint while heading north in violation of the ceasefire agreement. The military said it remains committed to the deal.
In a statement released ahead of his departure for Washington on Sunday, Netanyahu said he and Trump would discuss “victory over Hamas, achieving the release of all our hostages and dealing with the Iranian terror axis in all its components,” referring to Iran’s alliance of militant groups across the region, including Hamas.
He said that by working together, the U.S. and Israel could “strengthen security, broaden the circle of peace and achieve a remarkable era of peace through strength.”
Under the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is to release a total of 33 hostages, eight of whom Hamas says are dead, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces have pulled back from most areas and allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to devastated northern Gaza.
Negotiations on the second phase, in which the war would end and the remaining 60 or so hostages would be returned, are set to begin Monday. If the United States, Qatar and Egypt are unable to broker an agreement between Israel and Hamas, the war could resume in early March.
Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, joined the yearlong ceasefire negotiations in their final weeks last month and helped push the agreement over the finish line. He met with Netanyahu in Israel last week and the two were expected to formally begin talks on the second phase in Washington on Monday.
Trump brokered normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab countries in his first term. He now is seeking a wider agreement in which Israel would forge ties with Saudi Arabia.
But Riyadh has said it would only agree to such a deal if the war in Gaza ends and there is a credible pathway to a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
The U.S. supports Palestinian statehood, but Netanyahu’s government is opposed.
Even as the Gaza ceasefire has mostly held for two weeks, Israel has ramped up operations in the occupied West Bank. On Sunday, the military said it was expanding an operation focused on the volatile city of Jenin to the town of Tamun.
The Palestinian health ministry said a 73-year-old man was shot dead by Israeli troops in Jenin early Sunday. There was no immediate comment from the military.
The ministry had earlier reported five killed, including a 16-year-old, in Israeli airstrikes overnight.
The military said it killed two militants — one of whom had been freed as part of the weeklong Gaza ceasefire in November 2023 — in an airstrike on a village near Jenin. It said the two were planning an imminent attack, and that additional strikes targeted two other militant cells.
The West Bank has seen a surge in violence since the start of the war in Gaza, with Israel launching near-daily military arrest raids. There has also been a rise in settler violence against Palestinians and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
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