President Donald Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida on Monday hoping to push forward the ceasefire that he brokered in Gaza, while the Israeli leader is expected to make the case for new action against Iran.
Those two issues are expected to be the focus of the discussions at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property, a White House official told NBC News. It comes a day after the president hosted Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of the U.S. bid to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.
While Trump has been working for an end to the war in Europe, progress has stalled in the Middle East.
The Israel-Hamas truce went into effect in October, ending the two-year conflict in Gaza that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terror attack on Israel.
But there has been little movement on the more complex second phase of the peace process, raising concerns both sides are failing to take action to carry out the next phase of the deal.
More than 400 people have been killed in the Palestinian enclave since that agreement, local officials say, while Israel has accused Hamas of ceasefire violations including the delayed return of hostage remains — with one body still to be handed over.
The U.N. Security Council gave its approval to Phase 2 of Trump’s 20-point peace plan last month, which would see Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza and Hamas give up its weapons.
But few details have been publicly confirmed about the “Board of Peace” headed by Trump that would help oversee the territory's governance, or the International Stabilization Force (ISF) that would be deployed to Gaza.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month that Washington was aiming to get the new governance bodies in place “very soon.”
Rubio will meet with Netanyahu ahead of the Israeli prime minister's sit-down with the president.
While the U.S. may push its ally to move ahead in Gaza, the conversation is also expected to feature mounting Israeli concerns over Iran.
Netanyahu is expected to make the case to Trump that Iran’s expansion of its ballistic missile program poses a threat that could necessitate swift action, NBC News reported earlier this month.
Israeli officials have grown increasingly concerned that Tehran was expanding production of its ballistic missile program, which was damaged by Israeli military strikes earlier this year, and are preparing to brief Trump about options for attacking it again, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans and four former U.S. officials briefed on the plans.
The Israeli leader is expected to present Trump with options for the U.S. to join or assist in any new military operations, the sources said.
But Trump might take some convincing.
Although the U.S. conducted strikes on Iran’s major nuclear enrichment facilities in a joint operation with Israel in June, the president has hinted recently he might be open to returning to talks with Tehran.
