Israel’s Netanyahu heads to DC to meet Donald Trump: What is on the agenda?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has embarked on a crucial visit to the United States, where he is set to meet with President Donald Trump. This meeting, scheduled for Tuesday at the White House, marks Donald Trump’s first engagement with a foreign leader since his return to office. 

Ahead of his departure, Israel PM Netanyahu stated that he and the US President would discuss “victory over Hamas,” the release of hostages, and countering the Iranian threat in the region. Netanyahu also expressed optimism about their collaboration, suggesting it could lead to a “remarkable era of peace through strength.”

The meet comes as US and Arab mediators begin the daunting work of brokering the next phase of a ceasefire agreement to wind down the 15-month war in the Gaza Strip and release dozens of militant-held hostages.

Hamas, which has reasserted its control over Gaza since the ceasefire took hold last month, has said it will not release the hostages set to go free in the second phase without an end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Benjamin Netanyahu faces mounting pressure from his far-right coalition partners to resume military operations as the first phase of the ceasefire nears its conclusion in early March.

While Donald Trump has historically been a staunch ally of Israel, his recent statements indicate a complex position regarding Middle Eastern conflicts.

Earlier, Donald Trump has pledged to end wars in the west Asian conflicted zone, while also taking credit for brokering the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement.

 As negotiations for the next phase begin, involving US, Qatar, and Egypt as mediators, both leaders will need to navigate their respective domestic pressures and regional dynamics carefully. 

Israel’s air and ground war has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities who do not say how many of the dead were fighters. The war has left large parts of several cities in ruins and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people.

Under the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is to release a total of 33 hostages, eight of whom Hamas says are dead, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces have pulled back from most areas and allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to devastated northern Gaza while aid flows in.

Negotiations on the second phase, which would end the war and see the remaining 60 or so hostages returned, are set to begin Monday. If mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt are unable to broker an agreement between Israel and Hamas, the war could resume in early March.

Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, joined the yearlong ceasefire negotiations in their final weeks last month and helped push the agreement over the finish line. He met with Netanyahu in Israel last week and the two were expected to formally begin talks on the second phase on Monday.

Trump, who brokered normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab countries in his first term, is believed to be seeking a wider and potentially historic agreement in which Israel would forge ties with Saudi Arabia.

But the kingdom, which resisted similar entreaties from the Biden administration, has said it would only agree to such a deal if the war ends and there is a credible pathway to a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.