Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Donald Trump Tuesday to discuss the truce with Hamas, as the US president’s Middle East envoy said war-battered Gaza would remain uninhabitable for years.After Trump claimed credit for securing the Israel-Hamas truce after more than 15 months of fighting and bombing, he was likely to urge his ally Netanyahu to stick to the deal — parts of which have yet to be finalised.Israel said hours ahead of the White House talks it was sending a team to mediator Qatar to discuss the second phase of the agreement, which could lead to a more permanent end to the war.Palestinian group Hamas said Tuesday negotiations for the second phase had begun, with spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou saying the focus was on “shelter, relief and reconstruction”.Trump has touted a plan to “clean out” Gaza, calling for Palestinians to move to Egypt or Jordan.Both countries have flatly rejected this, and on Tuesday their leaders stressed “the need to commit to the united Arab position” that would help achieve peace, according to the Egyptian presidency.Gazans have also denounced Trump’s idea.”Trump thinks Gaza is a pile of garbage — absolutely not,” said 34-year-old Hatem Azzam, a resident of the southern city of Rafah.”Trump and Netanyahu must understand… we will not leave.”Before the leaders’ meeting, Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told reporters that “when the president talks about ‘cleaning it out,’ he talks about making it habitable”.Witkoff said it was “unfair” and “preposterous” to suggest Gaza can be rebuilt and made habitable within five years of the war’s end.- ‘Redrawn the map’ -Under the ceasefire, Palestinian militants and Israel have begun exchanging hostages held in Gaza for prisoners in Israeli custody.The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, taking into Gaza 251 hostages, 76 of whom are still held in the Palestinian territory including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.Families of the Israeli hostages have been urging all sides to ensure the agreement is maintained so their loved ones can be freed.Relatives of the youngest hostages, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, pleaded Monday for information on the two boys and their mother, Shiri, after their father Yarden Bibas was released in the latest swap.”We miss you so much and are waiting for you,” said Ofri Bibas, Yarden’s sister.Netanyahu, the first foreign leader hosted by Trump since his return to office, said before leaving for Washington that Israel had “redrawn the map” of the Middle East since the war began and drew in regional allies of Hamas.”I believe that working closely with President Trump we can redraw it even further, and for the better,” he said.Trump may seek to offer Netanyahu incentives to stick to the truce, such as reviving efforts towards a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia which froze with the Gaza war.Trump said Sunday talks with Israel and other Middle Eastern countries were “progressing” — before warning that he had “no assurances” that the Gaza truce would hold.- West Bank violence -Since the ceasefire took effect on January 19, Israel has launched a deadly operation against militants in the occupied West Bank’s north.UN aid agency UNRWA — now banned in Israel — warned that the heavily impacted refugee camp of Jenin was “going into a catastrophic direction”.”Parts of the camp were completely destroyed in a series of detonations by the Israeli forces,” said UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma.UN and Palestinian officials said Israel’s operations have pushed more than 5,000 families out of Jenin and another refugee camp in the northern West Bank since December.On Tuesday, the Israeli army said a gunman killed two soldiers before being shot dead in an attack south of Jenin.Asked how he viewed a possible annexation of the West Bank, Trump did not rule this out, telling reporters that Israel was “a small country in terms of land”.Under the Gaza truce’s ongoing 42-day first phase, 18 hostages have been freed so far in exchange for some 600 mostly Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.The truce has also led to a surge of food, fuel, medical and other aid into Gaza, and allowed people displaced by the war to return to the north of the Palestinian territory.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,518 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures as reliable.burs-ser/ami/srm
Tue, 04 Feb 2025 19:39:34 GMT
