WASHINGTON — Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet with President Trump on Monday, when they may announce a ceasefire deal for Gaza.
It will be Netanyahu's first visit to the White House since the two leaders collaborated in an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities last month.
In the wake of the 12-day war that Israel fought against Iran, the main focus between the two leaders was expected to be how to wind down Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza that began close to two years ago. Netanyahu told reporters Sunday that there was an opportunity to forge new diplomatic ties with additional unspecified countries. Israel is reportedly seeking a security pact with its longtime enemy Syria.
Trump said last week on his social media site that Israel has agreed to a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, and warned Hamas they had better accept it. Hamas this weekend voiced an initial positive response to the latest framework but said it needed to work out details before accepting.
Hamas triggered the current war when it attacked Israeli communities bordering the Gaza Strip in October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. More than 56,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel air strikes since then, the majority of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials, and Gaza's towns have been left in ruins.
A new ceasefire plan
According to the ceasefire proposal, Hamas would release eight living hostages at the start of the 60-day ceasefire, and two more hostages on the 50th day of the ceasefire. Israel would release Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli negotiators headed to Qatar Sunday for ceasefire talks with Hamas. But as with previous talks that have ended in stalemate, there are still major obstacles to overcome: the main one being Hamas' insistence that the talks lead to a permanent end to the war, a demand Israel has rejected. Israel has again said that Hamas is seeking "unacceptable" changes to the latest ceasefire proposal.
The deal resembles a similar one proposed by Israel and the U.S. earlier this year. Israel and Hamas had agreed on a ceasefire that took effect just as Trump came into office in January, and lasted until Israel renewed attacks in Gaza in March, and stopped all aid from entering the besieged coastal enclave. Food deliveries only resumed in late May under tight Israeli control in a system that the U.N. — which used to run aid deliveries — has called "death traps" for Palestinians trying to access the handout sites.
But Netanyahu has said Israel's accomplishments in weakening Iran — a country that backed anti-Israeli militant groups across the region, such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — have opened opportunities to release the 50 remaining living and dead hostages still in captivity in Gaza.
Adding to the Israeli public pressure to end the war is the large number of soldiers, 20, killed in Gaza in the past month alone.
The ceasefire talks have been mediated by Qatar, the U.S. and Egypt. An official from the region who was briefed on the talks but not authorized to speak publicly to the media told NPR that the Israeli delegation in Doha was a largely technical team and included Gal Hirsch, the government's official responsible for hostage affairs; Ophir Falk, Netanyahu's personal representative; and officers from the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, and Mossad, its overseas intelligence agency.
The delegation was to discuss Hamas's response to the latest proposal, hoping to reach a formula that reduces its demands, the official said.
A changing Middle East
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel that caught the country off guard, and triggered a cascade of regional events that have transformed the Middle East.
On Oct. 8, Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian-back militant group in Lebanon, started firing missiles into Israel in solidarity with Hamas, triggering a months-long exchange of rockets and airstrikes across their shared border.
Last fall, Israel launched a devastating attack on Hezbollah that wiped out most of its leadership. Shortly after that, Israeli airstrikes on Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah across neighboring Syria — at the time, a key ally of Iran — weakened the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown last December by rebels.
In June, Netanyahu launched an air war against Iran to destroy its nuclear program, which he said was aimed at building an atomic bomb, something Iran denied. Trump ordered a strike by U.S. strategic bombers on sites that Israeli bombs were unable to destroy, a major boost for Netanyahu.
Despite Israel's success in decimating Iran's allies and damaging its nuclear program, the massive death toll in Gaza has led to increasing diplomatic isolation for Israel, including widespread anti-Israeli protests in Europe and the U.S., and charges of genocide brought by South Africa in the International Court of Justice, something Israel vehemently denies.
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