Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he would like the war in Gaza to stop and thinks that will happen relatively soon, as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
Asked if he would deliver on his election campaign promise to end the war in Gaza, Trump said: “I’d like to see the war stop, and I think the war will stop at some point, that won’t be in the too-distant future.”
Israel launched the war after Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.
Trump said work was ongoing to free hostages held by Hamas, but said securing the release of all the hostages was “a long process.”
Trump and Netanyahu spoke to reporters in the Oval Office after their meeting.
Following the January ceasefire that saw some hostages released, Netanyahu said, Israel was working on “another deal we hope will succeed.”
“We’re committed to getting all the hostages out, but also eliminating the evil tyranny of Hamas in Gaza and enabling the people of Gaza to freely make a choice to go wherever they want,” he said.
Netanyahu said he had also discussed with Trump the U.S. president’s “bold vision” for the future of Gaza, a reference to a proposal for the U.S. to take over the enclave that Trump put forward multiple times during the opening weeks of his administration. Trump’s plan has been globally condemned as a proposal for ethnic cleansing.
Trump on Monday said having “a peace force like the United States there controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing” and once again suggested that Palestinians from Gaza could be moved to different countries.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Kanishka Singh and Simon Lewis; Editing by Leslie Adler and Cynthia Osterman)
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