Israel's Netanyahu heads to US to discuss 'victory over Hamas' with Trump

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he will discuss "defeating Hamas," confronting Iran, and expanding diplomatic relations with Arab nations during his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. This meeting at the White House marks Trump's first encounter with a foreign leader since his return to politics.

This meeting comes as U.S. and Arab mediators begin the arduous task of brokering the next phase of an agreement to end the war in Gaza and release dozens of hostages held by militants. Since the ceasefire last month, Hamas has rapidly reasserted control over Gaza and stated they will not release the second phase of planned hostage releases unless the war ends and Israeli forces completely withdraw.

Netanyahu is facing increasing pressure from his far-right governing partners to resume the war after the first phase concludes in early March. He has stated that Israel remains committed to defeating Hamas and securing the return of all hostages taken in the October 7, 2023, militant attacks that triggered the war. Trump's position is currently unclear; he has been a staunch supporter of Israel but has also pledged to end Middle East wars and taken credit for helping broker the ceasefire deal.

The agreement has halted fighting and led to the release of 18 hostages who had been held for over 15 months, while also resulting in the release of hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. According to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the injured, an Israeli airstrike on a car in central Gaza on Sunday injured five people, including a child in critical condition. The Israeli military stated they fired on the vehicle because it violated the ceasefire agreement by bypassing a checkpoint while traveling north. The military stated they remain committed to the agreement.

In a statement before departing on Sunday, Netanyahu said they will discuss "defeating Hamas, achieving the release of all our hostages, and dealing with the Iranian terror axis and all its components," referring to Iran's alliance of armed groups in the region, including Hamas. He said that by working together, they can "strengthen security, expand the circle of peace, and achieve an extraordinary era of peace through strength."

The war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages. During a week-long ceasefire in November 2023, over 100 hostages were released, eight were rescued alive, and Israeli forces recovered dozens of bodies. According to local health authorities, Israeli airstrikes and ground warfare have resulted in the deaths of over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of whom were women and children, with the department not specifying how many of the dead were combatants. The war has reduced large parts of several cities to rubble and displaced approximately 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people.

Under the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas was to release a total of 33 hostages, of whom Hamas says eight have already died, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces have withdrawn from most areas and allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to the devastated northern Gaza. Negotiations for the second phase, which are scheduled to begin on Monday, would end the war and return the remaining approximately 60 hostages. If the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt cannot broker a deal between Israel and Hamas, the war could resume in early March.

Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, joined the final weeks of the year-long ceasefire negotiations last month and helped push the agreement to completion. He met with Netanyahu in Israel last week, and the two are expected to formally begin discussions on the second phase in Washington on Monday. Trump, who is credited with brokering normalization deals between Israel and four Arab nations during his first term, is reportedly seeking a broader and potentially historic agreement in which Israel would establish ties with Saudi Arabia.

However, Saudi Arabia has resisted similar requests from the Biden administration, stating that it will only agree to such a deal if the war ends and there is a credible path to a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Netanyahu's government opposes a Palestinian state, and a key partner, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has threatened to withdraw from the governing coalition if the war is not resumed next month. This would increase the possibility of early elections, in which Netanyahu could be voted out of office.

Even as the ceasefire in Gaza has held for two weeks, Israeli operations in the occupied West Bank have intensified. On Sunday, the military stated they were expanding an operation targeting the volatile city of Jenin to include the town of Tamun. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that a 73-year-old man was shot and killed by Israeli forces in Jenin earlier on Sunday. The military did not immediately comment. The ministry had previously reported that five people were killed, including a 16-year-old, in Israeli airstrikes overnight.

The military stated that they killed two militants in an airstrike on a village near Jenin, one of whom had been released during the week-long Gaza ceasefire in November 2023. The military said that the two were planning imminent attacks, and that additional strikes were carried out against two other groups of militants. Violence in the West Bank has surged since the start of the Gaza war, with Israeli military arrest operations occurring almost daily. There has also been an increase in violence by settlers against Palestinians and attacks by Palestinians against Israelis.