Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday endorsed President Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza and switch the territory right into a luxurious waterfront improvement.
Throughout a dinner with Mr. Trump on the White House, Mr. Netanyahu stated Mr. Trump’s concept for the area was a “sensible imaginative and prescient” and prompt Palestinians might depart the territory altogether.
“It’s known as free selection,” Mr. Netanayahu stated. “You understand, if folks wish to keep, they’ll keep, but when they wish to depart, they need to be capable to depart.”
Mr. Netanyahu added that each the U.S. and Israel are working with different international locations to seek out locations for displaced Palestinians to relocate.
“They wish to give the Palestinians a greater future,” he stated. “I believe we’re getting near discovering a number of international locations, I believe this can give them the liberty to decide on. Palestinians ought to have it, and I hope we are able to safe it.”
In February, throughout Mr. Netanyahu’s first go to to Washington, Mr. Trump stirred worldwide controversy when he stated that some two million Palestinians may very well be relocated so the U.S. might take over the territory and develop it into an upscale resort.
He later walked again the suggestion that Gaza might turn into “the Riviera of the Center East.”
The dialog was a part of a variety of thorny points they two mentioned, together with the way forward for Gaza, an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and a deal to launch hostages the Islamist group seized in its Oct. 7 rampage by way of southern Israel.
In bid to ingratiate himself to Mr. Trump, the Israeli prime minister advised his U.S. counterpart that he submitted a letter to the Nobel Prize committee, nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Trump has lengthy complained about not profitable one for his peacemaking efforts, saying the committee is just too left-wing.
The personal dinner is the newest effort by Mr. Trump to push for peace within the Center East following the latest U.S. airstrikes on three nuclear services in Iran amid a broader marketing campaign by Israel.
The 2 nations struck a ceasefire deal, which Mr. Trump has hailed as considered one of his administration’s greatest accomplishments.
Mr. Trump in contrast his resolution to strike Iran’s nuclear websites to President Truman’s 1945 resolution to drop the atomic bomb on Japan to finish World Conflict II.
“In case you return a very long time in the past, it reminded folks of a sure different occasion,” Mr. Trump stated. “Harry Truman’s image is now within the foyer, in a pleasant location, within the foyer, the place it ought to have been. However that stopped plenty of combating and this stopped plenty of combating.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt advised reporters on the every day press briefing that the 2 leaders will “focus on constructive developments going down within the Center East area.”
“The utmost precedence for the president proper now within the Center East is to finish the battle in Gaza and to return the entire hostages,” she stated. “There was a ceasefire proposal that Israel helps that was despatched to Hamas, and we hope that they’ll conform to this proposal. We wish to see the entire hostages launched.”
Ms. Leavitt stated the ceasefire proposal was “agreeable and acceptable.”
She stated Mr. Trump’s particular envoy to the Center East, Steve Witkoff, will journey this week to Qatar, the place Israeli officers are at the moment holding oblique talks with Hamas to safe a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal.
Representatives of Qatar and Egypt are additionally taking part within the negotiations.
Mr. Trump predicted Sunday evening that an settlement may very well be reached this week, saying a deal is “shut,” whereas Mr. Netanyahu stated his assembly with the U.S. president might assist advance negotiations underway in Qatar between Israel and Hamas.
Nonetheless, a number of obstacles await.
Israel and Hamas are deadlocked on whether or not the settlement will result in a everlasting finish to the combating, which has raged for 21 months, barring a six-day pause in November 2023 and a 42-day ceasefire earlier this 12 months.
Hamas would wish to log out on any launch of hostages, nevertheless it has a brand new chief after Israel killed a number of of its high officers.
The brand new commander, Izz al-Din al-Haddid, took over final week and is claimed to be strongly against releasing all remaining hostages earlier than a complete finish to the battle in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Whereas Mr. Netanyahu has demanded the total elimination of Hamas, demanding that the group give up, disarm and go into exile, which the group has refused to do.
He sidestepped a query about whether or not Israel needed a peace take care of Hamas that doesn’t embrace a fully-sovereign Palestinian state.
“We’ll work out a peace with our Palestinian neighbors, those that don’t wish to destroy us,” he stated. “And we’ll work out a peace during which our safety, the sovereign energy of safety, at all times stays in our arms. Now folks will say, ‘It’s not a whole state, it’s not a state. It’s not that.’ We don’t care.”
Greater than 56,000 folks have been killed and 1000’s extra severely injured within the battle. Israel launched an offensive in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror assaults during which some 1,200 Israeli and different civilians have been killed and round 250 have been taken hostage.
Additionally, skirmishes proceed to erupt within the Center East at a fragile time the place not solely does the hostage deal grasp within the steadiness, however so does the spectre of Iran restarting its nuclear program.
Earlier Monday, simply hours earlier than Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu met, Israel carried out airstrikes in opposition to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, considered one of Iran’s regional proxies.
Israel’s army launched airstrikes Monday morning to take out ports and services held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which responded by firing missiles at Israel.
The bombing trade got here after Houthi rebels claimed duty for attacking a Liberian-flagged cargo ship on Sunday evening. The Houthis hit the ship with drones, missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms hearth, forcing its 22 crew members to desert the vessel.
The Israeli army stated it struck Houthi-controlled ports in Hodeiada, Ras Isa and Salif in addition to the Ras Kanatib energy plant.
“These factors are utilized by the Houthi terrorist regime to switch weapons from the Iranian regime, that are employed to hold out terrorist operations in opposition to the state of Israel and its allies,” the Israeli army stated in an announcement.
In a submit on X, Israeli Protection Minister Israel Katz stated the Iran-backed militant group would “proceed to pay a heavy value for his or her actions.”
]“The destiny of Yemen is identical because the destiny of Tehran,” he wrote, referring to Israel’s 12-day bombing marketing campaign in opposition to Iran final month.
A least six Israeli troopers and 10 others have been wounded, together with some critically, throughout a significant operation Monday in northern Gaza, in accordance with a number of Israeli media studies. The incident occurred when Palestinian fighters detonated an explosive gadget concentrating on an armored car transporting Israeli troopers.
Monday marked Mr. Netanyahu’s third go to to the White House since Mr. Trump returned to workplace in January, greater than another world chief. The 2 have lengthy loved a heat relationship.
Forward of Mr. Netanyahu’s dinner with Mr. Trump, the Israeli prime minister met with Mr. Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. On Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to talk with Home Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican.
A member of the Israeli Authorities Press Workplace stated Mr. Netanyahu had an prolonged assembly with Mr. Rubio, adopted by a non-public speak.
About two dozen protesters gathered close to the White House to show in opposition to Mr. Netanyahu’s assaults on Gaza.
“He views this a part of the area as having an actual probability of being peaceable and affluent,” Ms. Leavitt stated Monday. “However once more, we have to finish this battle. We have to get all of the hostages residence, and Hamas wants to just accept this proposal in an effort to do this.”
The dinner is targeted on Israel’s relationship with Syria as a part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to develop the Abraham Accords, a collection of offers that normalized relations between Israel and several other Arab states in the course of the president’s first administration.]
Mr. Trump final month signed an government order ending many years of U.S. sanctions on Syria in an effort to provide President Ahmed al-Shara, Syria’s new chief, a chance to assist his nation get well after greater than a decade of civil battle.
U.S. officers have stated Syria and Israel are engaged in “significant” talks to cut back tensions alongside their border.
Mr. Netanyahu stated earlier than his departure from Israel that “the chance to develop the circle of peace” prolonged “far past what we might have imagined earlier than.”
