President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, as Washington looks to create fresh momentum for a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza that could be in danger of stalling out before a complicated second phase.
President Trump will meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Palm Beach, Florida at 1PM Monday.
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Trump could use the face-to-face at his Mar-a-Lago estate to try to leverage his strong relationship with Netanyahu and look for ways to speed up the peace process, especially as Israel’s leader has been accused of not pushing his side to move fast enough.
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The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that Trump has championed has mostly held, but progress has slowed recently. Both sides accuse one another of violations, and divisions have emerged among the U.S., Israel and Arab countries about the path forward.
The truce’s first phase began in October, days after the two-year anniversary of the initial Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people. All but one of the 251 hostages taken then have been released, alive or dead.
Now comes the next, far more complicated part. Trump’s 20-point plan — which was approved by the U.N. Security Council — lays out an ambitious vision for ending Hamas’ rule of Gaza.
Read more: Trump’s team no longer trusts Netanyahu – Axios
The two leaders also could discuss non-Gaza topics, including Iran, whose nuclear capabilities Trump continues to insist were “completely and fully obliterated” following U.S. strikes on its nuclear sites in June.
There are many key facets of the ceasefire’s second phase that Israel’s leader doesn’t support or has even openly opposed, said Mona Yacoubian, director and senior adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“This is going to be a really tall order, I think, for President Trump to get Netanyahu to agree,” she said.
“How he does that, what kind of pressure he puts on Netanyahu, I think, is going to be important to watch for,” said Yacoubian, who also said the two could exhibit ”a broader clash of approaches to the region.”
