Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to personally plead for a reprieve from stinging US tariffs that have shaken the world.Netanyahu and Trump are also set to discuss Gaza, where a short-lived US-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas has collapsed, and growing tensions with Iran.Trump greeted Netanyahu outside the West Wing and pumped his fist, before the two leaders — both wearing dark suits, red ties and white shirts — went inside for a meeting in the Oval Office.A planned press conference between the two leaders was canceled at short notice without explanation in an unusual move. During his last visit, Netanyahu and Trump both spoke to reporters in the Oval and then held a press conference.The Israeli premier’s visit is his second to Trump since the US president returned to power and comes at short notice — just days after Trump slapped a 17 percent tariff on Israel in his “Liberation Day” announcement last week. Trump refused to exempt the top beneficiary of US military aid from his global tariff salvo as he said Washington had a significant trade deficit with Israel.Netanyahu said on his way to Washington on Sunday that they would discuss “the hostages, achieving victory in Gaza, and of course the tariff regime that has also been imposed on Israel.””I’m the first international leader, the first foreign leader who will meet with President Trump on a matter so crucial to Israel’s economy,” he said in a video statement.”There is a long line of leaders who want to do this. I believe this reflects the special personal relationship and the unique bond between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time.”Netanyahu met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Sunday night soon after his arrival, according to his office.The Israeli premier also met Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday.Trump told reporters on Sunday that “We’re going to talk about trade, and we’re going to talk about the obvious subject.””There’s a lot of things going on with the Middle East right now that have to be silenced,” he added.- Attack on paramedics -Israel’s war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, and the fate of the Israeli and US hostages still held in Gaza will be a major subject of discussion.Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, and the weeks-long ceasefire with Hamas that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had brokered collapsed.Trump has so far backed Israel to the hilt, accusing Hamas of failing to release the hostages.The United States has also brushed off an incident in which 15 medics and rescuers were killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza, sparking international condemnation.Israel’s army chief on Monday ordered a “deeper” investigation into the attack.France’s President Emmanuel Macron said Monday he had organized a call to Trump with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan during a visit to Cairo, with the leaders also calling for an immediate return to the truce.The leaders also insisted that the Palestinian Authority alone must be in charge of the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip — rejecting Trump’s plan for the US to “own” the enclave after the war.On Iran, Trump has been pressing for “direct talks” with Tehran on a new deal to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai said Tehran’s proposal for indirect negotiations was “generous, responsible and wise.”There has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might attack Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached.Netanyahu arrived direct from a visit to Hungary where Prime Minister Viktor Orban pulled his country out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) because the court issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader over the Gaza war.Both leaders also spoke by phone with Trump on Thursday.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Monday that 15 medics and rescuers killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill”.Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir meanwhile ordered a more in-depth investigation into the attack after an initial probe was completed by the military.The killings occurred in the southern Gaza Strip on March 23, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory. They have since sparked international condemnation, with Israel insisting there were militants in the ambulances.The PRCS announcement came as Hamas and rescuers said an Israeli strike on southern Gaza killed one journalist and wounded nine others, while the Israeli military reported it targeted a militant posing as a reporter.The journalist is one of at least 12 people killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory on Monday, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency, as the war entered its 19th month.Younis Al-Khatib, president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told journalists in Ramallah that an autopsy of the humanitarian personnel slain in March revealed that “all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill”.He called for an international probe into the killings.”We call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip,” Khatib said.Army chief Zamir ordered a more in-depth investigation in the attack.”The Chief of Staff has instructed a deeper investigation to be conducted and completed in the coming days,” the military said in a statement.”The preliminary inquiry indicated that the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area.”The Israeli military has previously said its soldiers fired on “terrorists” approaching them in “suspicious vehicles”, with a spokesman later adding that the vehicles had their lights off.But a video recovered from the cellphone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appears to contradict the Israeli military’s account.The footage shows ambulances travelling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing.- Journalist killed -Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugee were killed in the incident, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.Their bodies were found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what OCHA described as a mass grave.”Why did you hide the bodies?” Khatib said of the Israeli forces involved in the attack.An Israeli air strike on Monday hit a tent used by journalists in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, killing two people and wounding nine journalists, Gaza’s civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.The Hamas government media office said journalist Hilmi al-Faqaawi, who worked for a local news agency, was killed in the attack.The Israeli military meanwhile said it had “struck the Hamas terrorist Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed Aslih in the Khan Yunis area” overnight, without specifying whether he had been killed.The military claimed Aslih operated “under the guise of a journalist” and had taken part in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The Hamas government media office and the Palestinian Journalists Protection Center named Aslih among the nine wounded in the Khan Yunis strike.- ‘War crimes’ -Addressing the killing of the rescuers in March, an Israeli military official, briefing journalists over the weekend on condition of anonymity, said troops first fired at a vehicle carrying members of Hamas internal security forces, killing two and detaining another.Two hours later, at 6:00 am on March 23, the soldiers “received a report from the aerial coverage that there is a convoy moving in the dark in a suspicious way towards them” and “opened fire from far”, said the official.”They thought they had an encounter with terrorists.”According to OCHA the first team, which it said comprised rescuers and not Hamas militants, was hit by Israeli forces at dawn.In the hours that followed, additional rescue and aid teams searching for their colleagues were also struck, OCHA said.On Monday, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said that among the 15 killed were six Hamas militants.”What were Hamas terrorists doing in ambulances?” he said.Khatib dismissed the accusation, saying Israel has failed “to prove even once in 50 years that the Red Crescent or its crews carry or use weapons”.