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Donald Trump to meet Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog where the focus is squarely on international conflicts today.
Just a day after hosting Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago this afternoon.
It is the fifth meeting between the two leaders in the US this year and comes amid concerns over progress on Trump’s fragile Gaza truce plan.
Netanyahu and Trump will meet in Florida amid growing fears Israel could launch new offensives against regional enemies, potentially plunging the Middle East further into instability.
The Israeli prime minister left Israel on Sunday on his fifth visit to see Trump in the US this year.
High on the agenda will be the ceasefire in Gaza, which in October halted Israel’s devastating two-year-long military assault. Though the terms agreed for an initial phase have been largely completed, with Israel’s forces pulling back to new positions and Hamas releasing all living and all but one of the dead hostages, immense challenges face the implementation of the second phase of the president’s 20-point plan.
There are also fears Israel will launch new offensives against Hezbollah in Lebanon, breaking a ceasefire established more than a year ago, or against Iran, which it accuses of accelerating the manufacture of ballistic missiles in recent months.
There are fears in the White House that both Israel and Hamas are dragging their feet on the second phase of the ceasefire. But Trump says Netanyahu has asked for these talks, perhaps to put pressure on shifting focus to Iran. He may call for more US strikes on the Islamic republic.
We’ll have more over the coming hours.
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What is the tricky second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal?
The first phase of the truce deal required that Hamas release the remaining hostages, both dead and alive, taken during its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The group has so far returned all the living captives and the remains of all but one.
Under the second stage, Israel is supposed to withdraw from its positions in Gaza, while Hamas is supposed to lay down its weapons. But disarming is a major sticking point for the Islamist movement.
An interim authority is meanwhile meant to govern the Palestinian territory, and an international stabilisation force (ISF) is to be deployed.
But the deal is still tenuous. Both sides have alleged frequent ceasefire violations.
Israel is continuing to strike Hamas targets in Gaza, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon – despite there being a ceasefire there too.
Further to our earlier post, Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian said Netanyahu would discuss the second phase of Gaza deal, as well as bring up the “danger Iran poses not only to the region of the Middle East, but the United States as well”.
In recent months, Israeli officials and media have voiced concerns that Iran is rebuilding its ballistic missile arsenal after it came under attack during the 12-day war with Israel in June.
But Sina Toossi, a researcher at the Center for International Policy (CIP) in Washington, told AFP Trump’s insistence that US strikes in June destroyed Tehran’s nuclear program had “removed Israel’s most powerful historical justification for US support for war with Iran”.
Netanyahu’s new focus on Iran’s missiles is “an effort to manufacture a replacement casus belli”, Toossi says.
The Gaza ceasefire in October is one of the major achievements of Trump’s first year back in power, but his administration and regional mediators want to keep up the momentum.
There are reports that Trump would be keen to announce – even as early as January – a Palestinian technocratic government for Gaza, and the deployment of an international stabilisation force.
Axios reported on Friday that Trump wanted to convene the first meeting of a new Gaza “Board of Peace” that he would chair, at the Davos forum in Switzerland in January.
Trump’s global envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner hosted senior officials from mediators Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in Miami earlier this month.
Donald Trump to meet Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog where the focus is squarely on international conflicts today.
Just a day after hosting Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago this afternoon.
It is the fifth meeting between the two leaders in the US this year and comes amid concerns over progress on Trump’s fragile Gaza truce plan.
Netanyahu and Trump will meet in Florida amid growing fears Israel could launch new offensives against regional enemies, potentially plunging the Middle East further into instability.
The Israeli prime minister left Israel on Sunday on his fifth visit to see Trump in the US this year.
High on the agenda will be the ceasefire in Gaza, which in October halted Israel’s devastating two-year-long military assault. Though the terms agreed for an initial phase have been largely completed, with Israel’s forces pulling back to new positions and Hamas releasing all living and all but one of the dead hostages, immense challenges face the implementation of the second phase of the president’s 20-point plan.
There are also fears Israel will launch new offensives against Hezbollah in Lebanon, breaking a ceasefire established more than a year ago, or against Iran, which it accuses of accelerating the manufacture of ballistic missiles in recent months.
There are fears in the White House that both Israel and Hamas are dragging their feet on the second phase of the ceasefire. But Trump says Netanyahu has asked for these talks, perhaps to put pressure on shifting focus to Iran. He may call for more US strikes on the Islamic republic.
We’ll have more over the coming hours.
