Trump looks for a win on Israel-Gaza peace deal during Netanyahu visit
President Donald Trump hopes to strike a ceasefire deal in Gaza next week as he hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House while his negotiating team narrows the gaps between Hamas and Israel on an agreement to release hostages and end hostilities.
The Oval Office meeting with Netanyahu on Monday follows Trump’s decision to attack Iranian nuclear sites and then broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. The military operation divided the president’s most passionate supporters, some of whom felt betrayed given his pledge to avoid new wars.
Trump said he would be “very firm” with Netanyahu about ending the conflict. “I think we’ll have a deal next week,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Hamas is weighing whether to accept an amended proposal for a 60-day ceasefire put forward by Qatar and Egypt interlocutors. Mediators “are making intensive efforts to bridge the gap between the parties and reach a framework agreement that would pave the way for a serious round of negotiations,” Hamas said in a statement Wednesday.
Israelis are expecting Netanyahu and Trump to announce a ceasefire deal as well as agreements with other neighboring Arab nations during the trip. “It will be a very important visit,” Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said.
In theory, Netanyahu has more leverage to agree to a peace deal over the objections of far-right members in his Cabinet. Netanyahu is experiencing a boost in popularity following the joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, which polls show 82% of Jewish Israelis supported.
Israeli officials have also made clear their view that the ceasefire under consideration gives them options to continue fighting. “It’s not a commitment for ending the war,” Danon said.
Under the latest version of the deal, dated Monday, Hamas would release 28 Israeli hostages – 10 alive, and 18 bodies – in five stages over the course of the 60-day ceasefire, according to the summary provided to The Washington Post. Aid would immediately enter Gaza “in sufficient amounts” with the involvement of the United Nations and the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
After the first eight living hostages are released on the first day of the deal, the Israel Defense Forces would withdraw from parts of northern Gaza; after Day 7, the army would pull out from parts of the south.
Hamas would not be allowed to stage televised hostage handover ceremonies as it did during a previous ceasefire this year. Additionally, on Day 10, Hamas would indicate which hostages remain alive and in what condition – and Israel would provide information about the more than 2,000 Palestinians from Gaza who were rounded up by Israeli forces during the war and remain in administrative detention. Israel would also be required to release large numbers of imprisoned Palestinians in exchange for the hostages.
For months, negotiations have stalled and broken down over a fundamental disagreement: Israel wants a temporary truce to recoup hostages, but not an end to the war, while Hamas has called for a permanent cessation of hostilities and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave.
That impasse has bedeviled the efforts of Trump’s lead negotiator, special envoy Steve Witkoff, to push a short-term ceasefire. The modified deal put to Hamas this week contains guarantees of Trump’s commitment to the agreement and to continuing negotiations to reach a permanent ceasefire that would see the release of all hostages, the summary said.
Hesham Youssef, a retired Egyptian diplomat, said Hamas may feel it has “no choice” but to settle for the U.S. deal. “The Arab world is weak and not supporting them to get something better, and because also the suffering reached a level that has become unbearable. And of course because they (Hamas) have become much, much weaker,” Youssef said.
An Arab diplomat involved in the ongoing negotiations said that “Hamas may prefer to die in Gaza than agree to a deal that opens the door to further Israeli aggression,” the diplomat said.
Netanyahu has for months resisted signing a deal that would withdraw Israeli troops and release many of the remaining 50 hostages, of which roughly 20 are believed to be alive, partly to satisfy his far-right coalition partners who have threatened to quit the government if Gaza is not fully occupied.
Since last year, Israeli military and defense officials have informed Netanyahu that the IDF’s first war aim – to degrade Hamas’ ability to threaten Israel – has been accomplished, and that its second goal of returning the hostages is only possible through a deal.
IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir said last week that the army was approaching the completion of its war aims and would present politicians with “operational options” for the coming phases, adding that Hamas had been further weakened as a result of the war with Iran, the group’s “primary patron.”
Israeli officials are seeking to wrap a deal to end the war into a broader, multinational deal that could transform Israel’s security posture in the region.
“Politically, Netanyahu will not have a better opportunity than the one he has after the success of Iran, which will fade with time,” said Israel Ziv, a retired major general and former head of the Israel Defense Forces Operations Division. “That he can strike some kind of regional agreement with Syria, start a process on Saudi Arabia, bring back the hostages – that is, altogether, the highest advantage that he would be able muster ahead of elections.”
On Wednesday, Netanyahu began signaling for a deal, writing in a letter to the court handling his corruption trial that he would fly to Washington to sit down with Trump. That same day, his foreign minister, Gideon Saar, noted “some positive signs” in the U.S.-led efforts to restart intensive ceasefire negotiations with Hamas.
The government’s hard-line coalition parties, in response, threatened a “united front against the emerging deal,” said a person familiar with the details. On X, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid resurfaced his offer to supply Netanyahu a “safety net” that would ensure its parliamentary majority, in case the far right defects.
Trump has attacked Israeli prosecutors who are pursuing corruption charges against him. “It is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump said on Truth Social, praising his counterpart as a “war hero” at work on a peace deal.
Kamal Abu Aoun, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, said in a statement Wednesday that Hamas leaders were continuing “tireless, round-the-clock efforts with various parties to reach a comprehensive agreement that leads to a complete cessation of the aggression on Gaza.”
Hamas leaders were meeting in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss and vote on the latest proposal, an amended version of the framework initially presented by Witkoff months ago.
Those internal Hamas talks followed a meeting between a Hamas delegation led by Muhammad Darwish, head of the movement’s main consultative body, and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara on Wednesday. Hamas also said the group met with Ibrahim Kalin, the head of Turkey’s intelligence service.
The current blitz of diplomacy began when Egypt and Qatar intensified their efforts to broker a Gaza ceasefire after the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran stopped on June 24. Arab countries see ending the war – and, ideally, making progress toward a solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict – as essential for regional stability and security.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke with Witkoff by phone Wednesday evening, and the two men agreed “to intensify efforts in the coming days to reach a ceasefire agreement,” according to an Egyptian readout of the call.
Abdelatty also spoke with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan about the ceasefire efforts and the flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Israel launched its war in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and saw about 250 others taken hostage. Israeli attacks since have killed more than 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza and injured more than 134,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
At least 80 Palestinians were killed across Gaza on Thursday, according to Gaza health authorities. On Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike killed Marwan Sultan, head of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, along with four family members, at an apartment where the family was sheltering.
A strike overnight killed at least 15 people sheltering at a school in Gaza City, Mohamed Abu Salmiya, the director of the nearby al-Shifa Hospital, said Thursday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday it was “deeply alarmed” by the intensification of hostilities in Gaza City and Jabalya, in north Gaza. Many public hospitals across the Gaza Strip are out of service; others are “running dangerously low on essential supplies,” the ICRC said.
Medical workers report rising acute malnutrition among children in Gaza. Israel has not allowed fuel into Gaza in months, according to the United Nations, and aid groups say stockpiles are nearly depleted – imperiling civilians’ access to clean water, health care and telecommunications.
“Fuel is not a side issue – it is the backbone of humanitarian aid,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, an NGO that works in Gaza, wrote on X on Thursday. “Denial will collapse the entire system, with catastrophic consequences for civilians.”
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Parker reported from Jerusalem and Rubin and Soroka from Tel Aviv. Miriam Berger in Jaffa, Israel; Abbie Cheeseman in Beirut; Heba Farouk Mahfouz in Cairo; and Hazem Balousha in Hamilton, Canada, contributed to this report.