Donald Trump ‘confident of ceasefire, hostage deal’ as talks with Netanyahu begin

Speaking before going into closed door talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, the president also doubled down on his plan to move Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip to neighbouring countries.

Donald Trump meets with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House. Picture: AFP.

Donald Trump has said he’s confident that the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas will hold and a deal will be done to free the hostages in Gaza, as he doubled down on his plan to move Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip.

In a press conference before going into closed door talks at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Trump told reporters: “A (hostage) deal can get done, we’ll see what happens.

“We’re dealing with very complicated people,” he added, “but a deal can absolutely get done.”

The US President said “other countries” besides Jordan and Egypt would accept Palestinian refugees, who he said would leave Gaza permanently.

“I think that Gaza is a demolition site right now. If you look at Gaza, there’s hardly a building standing and the ones that are going to collapse. You can’t live in Gaza right now. I think we need another location, a location that’s going to make people happy.”

“It’s all death in Gaza,” he continued. “If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes, and then they can be happy enough, not be shot, not be killed, not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.

“I believe we can do it in areas where leaders currently say no,” he said.

Donald Trump greets Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at the North Portico of the White House. Picture: AFP.

Mr Netanyahu said he would support a deal that saw all the hostages freed, but said he had three war goals which included “destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and making sure Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again.”

“We will achieve all three,” he told reporters.

Mr Trump said it was “a horrible thing” that terrorists with blood on their hands were being released from prison as part of the deal.

Mr Trump, who was shown footage from the October 7 massacre, said: “I’ll never forget it. You can’t forget it. Some people want to put it out of their memory but we can never let that happen,” he said.

The future of the precarious Gaza ceasefire is expected to dominate much of the discussions between the two leaders.

A commitment from Netanyahu to negotiate an extension and potentially a long-term cessation of hostilities would give Trump a diplomatic win, and could secure the release of remaining hostages, including some Americans.

But ending the 16-month-old war poses a challenge for Netanyahu, whose government is divided over whether the Israeli military operation in Gaza should be drawn to a close with Hamas badly weakened but not destroyed.

With such high stakes, the talks could provide an early indication of the state of the sometimes wary Trump-Netanyahu relationship.

Indirect talks on extending the 42-day fighting pause were supposed to begin Monday in Qatar, but Netanyahu was in Washington, delaying a decision on engaging with Hamas until after his meeting with Trump.

Trump himself seemed uncertain about the prospects for the ceasefire, telling reporters in the Oval Office Monday: “I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold.” But he has also seemed intent on not letting the Gaza war drag on, bogging down his presidency in prolonged negotiations the way the Biden administration was – a message Trump is likely to make clear Tuesday, analysts said.

“Fundamentally, this is about laying down a marker for Netanyahu that he is going to have to be much more accommodating to Trump’s preferences than he was to Biden’s,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior intelligence official who is at the Atlantic Council think tank.

Trump took credit for helping to broker the ceasefire agreement, which was negotiated before he took office. He has floated the idea of moving the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza out of the territory so it can be rebuilt, a suggestion that has been rebuffed by Arab states even as it has been welcomed by far-right Israeli politicians.

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff sounded more optimistic than Trump Monday. “It is holding so far,” he said of the ceasefire, “so we’re certainly hopeful.”

Netanyahu has said he is prepared to restart the fighting in Gaza and the country’s military is seeking to further isolate Hamas from the civilian population, military analysts said. He is under pressure from many in his own Likud party and members of his governing coalition not to accept a complete halt to the conflict.

But he may be willing to extend the ceasefire in return for a commitment from Trump to diminish Iran’s regional influence and prevent the regime from moving closer to becoming a nuclear weapons state, a goal that would require intensified US economic pressure and possibly military action.

Before boarding the plane in Israel, he told reporters that his country’s operations against Iranian proxies in the Middle East had “redrawn the map” of the region. “I believe that working closely with President Trump, we can redraw it even further and for the better.” For Netanyahu the meeting is one of the most important for an Israeli prime minister in years, said Amir Avivi, a former senior security official and founder of the Israel Defence and Security Forum think tank. “It revolves around building an overall strategy for how the Middle East will be shaped for decades.” Tehran hasn’t made a decision to build a nuclear weapon, according to US intelligence assessments. They are within weeks of being able to make enough nuclear material for a bomb, though it would take longer to make an actual nuclear device.

Trump and his national-security team have discussed the possibility of striking Iranian facilities, though the president has said little to indicate he is eager to use force and is open to negotiations over Tehran’s program and proxy network. Netanyahu has long tried to convince Trump that military force is the most effective way to disarm Iran.

Trump’s plans for Iran are perhaps the murkiest part of his Middle East agenda, at one moment appearing to encourage Netanyahu to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, something that could certainly trigger a broader war, while simultaneously saying he wants to avoid a war and cut a deal with Tehran.

The two leaders share a grand vision of normalising ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a diplomatic goal that could reshape the Middle East and end Israel’s isolation by Arab states. But a hurdle remains because Riyadh has made establishing a clear pathway to a Palestinian state a condition for recognising Israel.

On Monday, Israel’s powerful finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said he would oppose normalisation with Saudi Arabia if Israel had to recognise Palestinian national rights, if Israel’s ability to topple Hamas was impaired, or if the deal strengthened the Palestinian Authority. The PA governs Palestinians in the West Bank and is favoured by Riyadh to lead Palestinians into statehood in Gaza and the West Bank.

But Netanyahu may not be a captive to his current coalition since opposition parties have vowed to keep his government alive as long as he pursues the release of Israeli hostages.

Netanyahu may even prefer to shake up his coalition or go to early elections, said Abraham Diskin, professor emeritus at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. “Coalition considerations are secondary,” Diskin said.

Despite Netanyahu’s pressures back home, in the Oval Office, Trump will aim to persuade the Israeli leader to adopt his vision, or at least reframe his own.

“I’d be shocked if Netanyahu leaves without a promise to Trump that he will honour the second phase of the ceasefire,” said Bilal Saab, a former Pentagon official in the first Trump administration. “Trump will give him hell if he doesn’t.”

Dow Jones