Trump asks Netanyahu to end Gaza conflict and stop Iran

Trump asks Netanyahu to end Gaza conflict and stop Iran

The US President Donald Trump has asked Israel to end the war in the Gaza strip and refrain from attacking Iran, as was known from sources that are familiar with the conversation. On Monday, Trump explained that the conversation was "very good, very harmonious" on a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

urgency of a change of course

The request to Israel to rethink his strategy takes place at a time when Washington is interested in an atomic agreement with Iran and indirect discussions with Hamas about a ceasefire in Gaza. CNN tried to comment from the White House.

progress in the negotiations

Netanyahu gathered his most important ministers on Tuesday evening, after "some progress" in the negotiations on an armistice had been given, his office said. The meeting served to discuss the current developments and plan next steps.

On the same day, the Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar expressed that there were also progress in the negotiations on an armistice to bring the hostages recorded in Gaza. "Israel is determined to secure an agreement on the hostage. There has been certain progress lately," said Sa’ar in a press conference in Jerusalem. However, he said with caution: "In the face of past experiences, I don't want to overestimate anything at this point."

statement by Hamas

In an explanation, Hamas announced that it would continue to be open to the ceasefire proposed by the US special envoy Steve Witkoff, but needed stronger guarantees against Israeli attacks. In a television speech, Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking official of the militant group, explained that Hamas Witkoff's proposal did not reject, but had submitted changes with stronger security guarantees. Hamas demands that every agreement include a permanent end of the war in Gaza and the withdrawal of the Israeli forces.

growing differences between Trump and Netanyahu

Trump and Netanyahu seem to have increasingly different views of the war in Gaza, while the conflict has now been over 20 months. Netanyahu has made it clear that his war goals include the complete disarmament and removal of Hamas. Trump, on the other hand, urges the end of the war.

This is one of several important topics in the region, where increasing differences between the USA and Israel are visible. In the past few weeks, the Trump administration Israel by the Trump administration by a trip to the Middle East and reached a ceasefire with the Houthis supported by Iran in Yemen, which did not stop the ballistic rocket attacks on Israel. In addition, sanctions against Syria were lifted, while Israel warns against legitimizing a regime that is led by former jihadists.

A call for de -escalation

In the conference call, Trump to Netanyahu said that he should stop speaking of an attack on Iran. Netanyahu, on the other hand, had repeatedly confirmed that a military option would be considered to stop the Iranian nuclear program. In his conversation with Trump, Netanyahu said that Iran only wanted to win time and was not seriously interested in negotiations.

The Abraham agreements and the way to normalize

The Trump administration also tries to expand the Abraham agreements, a number of Agreements from Trump's first term that made Israel possible to normalize relationships with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. But Saudi Arabia has made it clear that relationships with Israel will not normalize without concrete steps to recognize a Palestinian state and a plan to implement the two-states solution.

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said this week that a two-state solution is no longer the goal of US politics, as was the case with both Republican and Democratic governments for decades. "There will be no space for this without significant changes," said Huckabee in an interview with Bloomberg News in Jerusalem. He emphasized that this will not be done “in our lifetime”. Huckabee previously spoken out for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and once said that there was "actually no Palestinian people".