Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met United States President Donald Trump on the White Home, with the 2 leaders repeating their controversial proposal to forcibly switch 1000’s of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip.
Trump and Netanyahu met for dinner within the Blue Room of the White Home on Monday as oblique talks in Qatar between Israel and Hamas on US-backed proposals for a 60-day ceasefire to finish the 21-month Gaza battle appeared to collect some momentum.
Netanyahu advised reporters current on the assembly that the US and Israel have been working with different nations to present Palestinians a “higher future”, suggesting that the residents of Gaza may transfer to neighbouring nations.
“If individuals wish to keep, they will keep, but when they wish to depart, they need to be capable to depart. It shouldn’t be a jail. It must be an open place and provides individuals a free alternative,” Netanyahu mentioned.
“We’re working with america very intently about discovering nations that can search to grasp what they all the time say, that they needed to present the Palestinians a greater future. I feel we’re getting near discovering a number of nations.”
Trump, who earlier this yr precipitated outrage when he floated his concept of relocating Palestinians and taking up the Strip to show it right into a “Riviera of the Middle East”, mentioned there had been “nice cooperation” on the matter from “surrounding nations”.
“So one thing good will occur,” he added.
‘Recipe for disaster’
“That is one thing the Israelis have been saying for a while, calling it the ‘voluntary migration’ of Palestinians from their homelands. However after all, this has been condemned as ethnic cleaning,” Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut mentioned, reporting from Amman, Jordan.
Former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas advised Al Jazeera that simply because there are ongoing experiences and statements about relocating Palestinians in Gaza to different nations, it doesn’t imply that there’s a “sensible plan”.
“The truth that the Israeli defence minister blurts some concepts out, and even the prime minister, and even the president of america, doesn’t imply there’s a plan,” he mentioned.
“In early February, Trump spoke a couple of Palestinian Riviera, and inside 36 hours, he modified that from a Riviera for the Palestinians to the Palestinians shall be expelled,” he added.
Pinkas defined that amid experiences that the Boston Consulting Group, which has been requested to provide you with a plan to relocate Palestinians, it “doesn’t imply it’s implementable, it doesn’t imply it’s sensible”.
“[It] is a recipe for disaster as a result of it ensures that no [post-war] settlement in Gaza is sturdy,” Pinkas mentioned.
Trump and Netanyahu met as Israeli and Hamas negotiators held a second day of indirect talks in Qatar, seated in numerous rooms in the identical constructing. Proposals for a 60-day pause in preventing envisage a phased launch of Hamas-held captives and Palestinian prisoners, Israeli troop withdrawals from components of Gaza, and discussions on fully ending the battle.
However a sticking level is whether or not the ceasefire will finish the battle altogether. Hamas has mentioned it’s keen to free all of the captives in alternate for all Palestinian prisoners and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu says the battle will finish as soon as Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile – one thing the Palestinian group refuses to do.
Prematurely of Netanyahu’s go to to the US, Trump predicted {that a} ceasefire deal might be reached this week. However Netanyahu appeared cagey, ruling out a full Palestinian state, saying Israel will “all the time” maintain safety management over the Gaza Strip.
Monday’s talks in Qatar ended with no bulletins. Trump’s particular envoy Steve Witkoff, who performed an vital function in crafting the proposals, is anticipated to affix negotiators in Qatar this week.
Coveted Nobel nomination
Trump and Netanyahu’s discussions got here simply over two weeks after the previous ordered the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites in help of Israeli air strikes, earlier than asserting a ceasefire within the 12-day Israel-Iran battle.
Throughout their assembly, Netanyahu gave Trump a letter that he mentioned had been used to appoint the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump, showing happy by the gesture, thanked him.
“A lot of that is about optics,” mentioned Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle, reporting from Washington, DC. “In fact, the [Israeli] prime minister shall be very eager to make it possible for that is seen again residence as a significant success … He’s very eager to make it possible for he’s portrayed as being again within the good favours of Donald Trump.”
Trump has made little secret of the truth that he covets a Nobel, trumpeting current truces that his administration facilitated between India and Pakistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda.
In the course of the assembly, Trump indicated that Iranian officers have reached out to the US to schedule talks about Iran’s nuclear programme. Negotiations had began in April however have been scuppered after Israel launched assaults final month.
“We have now scheduled Iran talks, and so they … wish to discuss. They took an enormous drubbing,” mentioned the US president.
Sitting on the desk with Trump, Witkoff mentioned the assembly can be quickly, maybe in every week.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian mentioned in an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, launched on Monday, that he believed Tehran may resolve its variations with Washington by means of dialogue.
Netanyahu, who additionally met Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, is because of meet Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday morning (about 13:30 GMT).