US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday evening for the second time in as many days to discuss the ongoing war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
The meeting came after Trump\u2019s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff suggested Israel and Hamas had one remaining issue to agree on for a 60-day ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu arrived at the White House shortly after 17:00 EST (21:00 GMT) on Tuesday for the meeting, which was not open to members of the press.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Tuesday, Netanyahu met with vice-president JD Vance. He also met with Trump for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday.<\/p>\n
It marks Netanyahu\u2019s third state visit to the US since Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n
The meeting of the two leaders lasted around two hours.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu also met with the Republican House of Representative Speaker Mike Johnson.<\/p>\n
After that meeting, the Israeli Prime Minister said he did not believe Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza was done, but that negotiators are \u201ccertainly working\u201d on a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas\u2019 military and government capabilities,\u201d Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n
Witkoff later said that Israel and Hamas were closing the gap on issues that previously prevented them from reaching a deal, and that he hoped a temporary, 60-day ceasefire will be agreed on this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had four issues and now we\u2019re down to one\u201d, Witkoff said of the sticking points in negotiations.<\/p>\n
He added that the draft deal would also include the release of 10 hostages who are alive, and the bodies of nine who are deceased.<\/p>\n
Before the Israeli Prime Minister\u2019s meeting with Trump on Monday, a Qatari delegation arrived at the White House and spoke with officials for several hours, Axios reported, citing a source with knowledge of the talks.<\/p>\n
Trump told reporters on Monday evening that ceasefire talks are \u201cgoing very well\u201d. But Qatar, which has played a mediator role in negotiations, said on Tuesday morning that more time was needed for negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this,\u201d Qatar\u2019s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said.<\/p>\n
Before discussions resumed on Tuesday, a Palestinian source familiar with the talks told the BBC they have not made any headway.<\/p>\n
The latest round of negotiations between Hamas and Israel began on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The ongoing Gaza war began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel\u2019s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 57,500 in Gaza according to the territory\u2019s Hamas-run health ministry.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday evening for the second time in as many days to discuss the ongoing war in Gaza. The meeting came after Trump\u2019s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff suggested Israel and Hamas had one remaining issue to agree on for a 60-day ceasefire deal. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}