Donald Trump will receive Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in Washington in a new attempt from the US president to mediate for a peace agreement on Gaza. For the Israeli prime minister it will be a return of honor for the Oval Office after the joint military campaign against Iran and its allies in the Middle East.
The two leaders have a complex personal relationship – of which Trump's open criticism against the Israeli were an example last month while the truce was negotiated with Iran – but both seem to be more compenered since the bombing against Iranian nuclear facilities, with which a fundamental objective of Israeli war strategists was fulfilled.
Netanyahu arrives in Washington in a powerful political position, according to analysts, which provides him with the diplomatic coverage he needs to end the Gaza War without his right -wing supporters being stirred and his government will come down.
Hamas responded “positively” this week to the Israeli proposal of a high fire of 60 days. But their negotiations want Israel to guarantee a definitive end of war and that humanitarian aid is distributed again through the UN, and not from the Humanitarian Foundation of Gaza, sponsored by Israel and the US. The deployment of this alternative has been injured, with almost daily episodes in which Israeli troops have triggered civilians who gathered next to the cast points. Hundreds of people have died for it.
Israel has declared that these conditions are unacceptable, but Netanyahu has said that, despite this, will send your negotiators to Qatar to have indirect conversations with Hamas. On Sunday, before leaving for the US, he said that Israel had the opportunity to “extend the circle of peace beyond what I had imagined.”
Netanyahu also indicated that negotiators had precise instructions to achieve a high fire agreement according to the conditions accepted by Israel, and that Trump could help achieve that goal, according to Reuters.
“We have already transformed the Middle East until it is unrecognizable, now we have the opponent of offering a great future to the people of Israel and the Middle East,” he said.
These conversations will be the first in six weeks, and Trump told journalists that it is very optimistic about the possibility of a high fire. “Next week there could be an agreement on Gaza,” he said Friday at the presidential plane.
The main strategic advisor of Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, met in Washington before the meeting between leaders with the US vice president, JD Vance, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and the US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. In those meetings, as he has known The Guardianthe parties have discussed the postwar conditions that would allow Israel to expel Hamas from the Gaza Strip and involve the international community in its reconstruction.
“We have no interest in staying in Gaza,” replied The Guardian The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon. “I think we will make sure we can act in Gaza, in regard to security, very simulating as we do in Judea and Samaria,” in reference to the West Bank.
Hamas has claimed the US to guarantee that Israel will end the war. But Damon said that the initial commitment of 60 days of cessation of attacks “was not a commitment to end the war”, and that during the period the permanent fire would continue to be discussed.
“We are going to have to think about the mechanism that will allow Israel to declare that the war is over, will allow international organizations and other actors to intervene and make sure that Hamas is not there,” he said.
American and Israelis officials consider that the military campaign in Gaza – which has caused the death of more than 57,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians – has allowed Netanyahu to effectively dictate the conditions to Hamas and that the group has very little influence on negotiations.
According to the latest version of the agreement, Hamas would release 28 Israeli hostages – 10 alive and 18 corpses – within 60 days of high fire. The UN and the Palestine Red Crescent would receive additional license to expand aid operations in Gaza. The Israeli army would first withdraw from northern Gaza and, a week later, from the south.
The agreement would leave about 22 hostages, 10 of them living, still held in Gaza.
Netanyahu has boasted that his expected meetings in Washington with Trump and other senior officials, including Vance, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and Rubio, were achieved in part by Israel's willingness to face Iran.
“These (meetings) occur after the great victory we achieved,” said Netanyahu in statements to the Israeli government. “Taking advantage of success is still an important part of the achievement of success.”
A key issue is whether Trump's patience with Netanyahu will last. Sometimes he has been frustrated by the slowness of negotiations on the high fire in Gaza. “Make the deal in Gaza. Recover the hostages! Djt,” he wrote on social networks a week ago.
And last week, when he tried to negotiate the fire between Israel and Iran, he had what looked like a small collapse while complaining in the White House garden: “(Iran) raped (the stop the fire), but Israel also raped it … I am not happy with Israel,” he said. “Basically we have two countries that have been fighting so much and so hard that they don't know what the pussy they are doing.”
While Netyahu arrives in Washington on Monday for the third time since Trump's possession, it seems to know exactly what he is doing. And although Trump has proclaimed his good faith as a negotiator, the decision of when and how a high fire is applied in Gaza seems to be, ultimately, out of reach.
