
Netanyahu returns to White House holding all the cards in Gaza talks
Netanyahu and Trump have a complex personal relationship – and Trump openly vented frustration at him last month during efforts to negotiate a truce with Iran – but the two have appeared in lockstep since the US launched a bombing run against Iran's nuclear programme, fulfilling a key goal for Israeli war planners.
Netanyahu arrives in Washington in a strong political position, observers have said, potentially giving him the diplomatic cover he would need to end the war in Gaza without facing a revolt from his rightwing supporters that could lead to the collapse of his government.
Hamas this week responded 'positively' to a 60-day Israeli ceasefire proposal. But its negotiators have sought for Israel to guarantee a permanent end to the war and to manage the distribution of aid in Gaza through the UN, rather than the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has had a tumultuous rollout marred by near-daily incidents of Israeli soldiers opening fire on civilians gathering near its distribution sites, killing hundreds of people.
Israel has said the proposed changes to a ceasefire proposal are unacceptable, but Netanyahu has said he will nonetheless send negotiators to Qatar for indirect talks with Hamas. Before boarding his flight to the US on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel had an opportunity 'to expand the circle of peace far beyond what we could have imagined'.
Netanyahu also said Israeli negotiators heading to ceasefire talks in Qatar had clear instructions to achieve a ceasefire agreement under conditions Israel had accepted, Reuters reported, and added that Trump could help achieve those goals.
'We have already transformed the Middle East beyond recognition, and we now have a chance to bring a great future to the people of Israel and the Middle East,' he said.
Those will be the first talks in six weeks and Trump has told reporters he is very optimistic about the potential for a ceasefire. 'There could be a Gaza deal next week,' Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One on Friday.
Before the meetings, Netanyahu's top strategic adviser, Ron Dermer, huddled with the US vice-president, JD Vance, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, for consultations in Washington. During those meetings, the Guardian has been told, the two sides discussed postwar conditions that would allow Israel to banish Hamas from the Gaza Strip and task the international community with responsibility for its rebuilding.
'We have no interest to stay in Gaza,' Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Damon, said in response to a question from the Guardian. 'I think we will make sure that in terms of security, we have the ability to act in Gaza, very similar to what's happening today in Judea and Samaria,' territories known internationally as the occupied West Bank.
Hamas has pushed for guarantees from the US that Israel will end the war permanently. Damon, however, said an initial 60-day ceasefire was 'not a commitment for ending the war', and that further discussions on a permanent ceasefire would take place in that period.
'We're going to have to think about the mechanism which will allow Israel to declare that the war is over, will allow international organisations and other players to step in and we make sure that Hamas is not there,' he said.
US and Israeli officials have said they believe the military campaign in Gaza – which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians – has allowed Netanyahu to effectively dictate terms to Hamas and that the group has very little leverage in negotiations.
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The latest version of the deal would have Hamas release 28 Israeli hostages – 10 alive and 18 bodies – over the course of the 60-day ceasefire. The UN and Palestine Red Crescent Society would be given additional licence to expand aid operations in Gaza. The Israeli army would withdraw first from parts of northern Gaza, and one week later would pull out from parts of the south.
The deal would leave approximately 22 hostages, 10 of them alive, still held in Gaza.
Netanyahu has boasted that his expected meetings in Washington with Trump and other senior officials, including Vance, the secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, and Rubio, were in part achieved by Israel's readiness to confront Iran.
'These come in the wake of the great victory that we achieved,' Netanyahu said in remarks to the Israeli government. 'Taking advantage of the success is no less an important part of achieving the success.'
A key question is whether Trump's patience with Netanyahu will last. He has at times been frustrated with the slow pace of negotiations over the Gaza ceasefire. 'MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!! DJT,' he wrote on social media a week ago.
And as he sought to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last week, he had what looked like a minor meltdown as he complained on the White House lawn: '[Iran] violated [the ceasefire] but Israel violated it, too ... I'm not happy with Israel,' he said. 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing.'
As Netanyahu comes to Washington on Monday for the third time since Trump's inauguration, he appears to know exactly what he is doing. And while Trump has touted his bona fides as a dealmaker, the decision for when and how a ceasefire is implemented in Gaza appears ultimately out of his hands.

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The Independent
27 minutes ago
- The Independent
28 Palestinians including children killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 28 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including four children, hospital officials said Saturday. The children and two women were among at least 13 people who were killed in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, after Israeli airstrikes pounded the area starting late Friday, officials in Al-Aqsa Martyr's Hospital said. Another four people were killed in strikes near a fuel station, and 15 others died in Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital. The Israeli military said in a statement that over the past 48 hours, troops struck approximately 250 targets in the Gaza Strip, including militants, booby-trapped structures, weapons storage facilities, anti-tank missile launch posts, sniper posts, tunnels and additional Hamas infrastructure sites. The military did not immediately respond to The Associated Press' request for comment on the civilian deaths. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and abducted 251. They still hold 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel's offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, which is under Gaza's Hamas-run government, doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The U.N. and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties. U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war. But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there were no signs of a breakthrough. ___


The Sun
28 minutes ago
- The Sun
Iran's aging & paranoid Ayatollah is hanging by a thread – I know how it will all come crashing down, says ex-ambassador
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Power held by Iran's terror proxies - including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen - has also been severely depleted. Wallace told The Sun: "The regime isn't just wounded, they're fully on their heels. "The very old Ayatollah has been hiding in a bunker somewhere, and there's clearly going to be some sort of transition. "Remember, there have only been two Ayatollahs. The question is, is there going to be a third." Iran's first Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power during the revolution of 1979 - ousting the Shah empire and transforming the state into a theocratic Islamic republic. His bloody rule was taken over by Khamenei following his death a decade later. Iran's Ayatollah breaks silence after WEEKS cowering in bunker during Israel's blitz and 'obliterating' Trump strikes Since then, Tehran has ramped up its nuclear ambitions and become an increasingly bigger threat to not only the Middle East but the West too. 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He sounded like an 86-year-old man who had been hiding in a bunker, trying to keep his regime alive. "Really it does call into question how long he will be there. We know he's going to die of either natural or unnatural causes sometime in the next couple of years. "The question is, what happens next? And I think he's doing everything he can to try to find some sort of path to succession, to continue this revolutionary regime." Khamenei will now be scrambling to have a clear succession mapped out - with at least five of his top confidants thought to be in the running. The aging despot's son Mojtaba Khamenei is a cleric and close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, so could be high on the potential list of successors. Also in the running is likely to be Assembly of Experts members Alireza Arafi and Hojjatal Islam Mohsen Qomi and reform-minded presidents such as Hassan Rouhani. The head of Iran's judicial system Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i meanwhile is thought of as a front-runner to take the reins. The ruling establishment will try to immediately name a successor to Khamenei if he is killed or dies naturally. Despite the international outcry against the regime waging war against its own people and the threat of aggression to other nations, Wallace argued the West cannot help remove the fanatics. 10 10 10 "The only path ultimately is for the regime to fall - but that is solely in the control of the Iranian people," he said. "Sadly, the Iranian people will suffer, and a good number will likely have to die for that to happen, and they're being persecuted as we speak. "There's this regrettable debate going on about regime change, as if somehow we can engage in a direct strategy to engage in regime change. We can't. "We can do everything we can to support Iranian people and degrade the regime's ability to threaten all of us through nuclear weapons or threaten us with terrorism and transnational oppression. "We can also do everything we can to sanction and impede the ability of the state security apparatus to oppress its own people. "But, ultimately, the kinetic moment when the dry leaves and the twigs of a forest catch fire, as a metaphor for revolution, is up to the Iranian people." Inside Iran's brutal crackdown on its own people by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital) TYRANNICAL leaders in Iran have demanded citizens act as undercover informants to turn in anyone who dares oppose the regime, insiders say. Panicked mullahs have also ordered "telecom cages" be installed around prisons as the regime wages war against its own people. Political prisoners - largely banished to death row on trumped-up charges - have been subject to extreme torture and a disturbing rate of executions in the face of growing tensions in the Middle East. Insiders say their treatment is being weaponised to deter opposition. The fight against repression has loomed large for decades in the rogue state - but the so-called 12-day war last month has made the barbaric Ayatollah more fearful than ever of being toppled. With Ali Khamenei's grip weakened by the unprecedented Israeli and US blitz, the incapacitated supreme leader has discharged fresh hell on his own people in a corrupt bid to stifle uprising. Sources inside Iran told The Sun how a direct alert has been issued to the public, urging them to report any activity linked to resistance groups of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Regime loyalists have been implored to act as informants - compiling detailed reports with photos, times, locations, licence plates and facial features of suspected individuals.


Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Gaza truce talks faltering over withdrawal, Palestinian and Israeli sources say
CAIRO/JERUSALEM, July 12 (Reuters) - Talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza are stalling over the extent of Israeli forces' withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources familiar with the negotiations in Doha said on Saturday. The indirect talks over a U.S. proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are nonetheless expected to continue, the sources said, despite the latest obstacles in clinching a deal. A Palestinian source said that Hamas has rejected the withdrawal maps which Israel has proposed, as they would leave around 40% of the territory under Israeli control, including all of the southern area of Rafah and further territories in northern and eastern Gaza. Two Israeli sources said Hamas wants Israel to retreat to lines it held in a previous ceasefire before it renewed its offensive in March. The Palestinian source said matters regarding aid and guarantees for ending the war were also presenting a challenge, and added that the crisis may be resolved with more U.S. intervention. The White House said on Monday that Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, who played a major role in crafting the latest ceasefire proposal, will travel to Doha this week to join discussions there. Delegations from Israel and Hamas have been in Qatar since Sunday in a renewed push for an agreement which envisages a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals and discussions on ending the war entirely. Hamas has long demanded an end to the war before it would free remaining hostages; Israel has insisted it would end the fighting only when all hostages are released and Hamas is dismantled. The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages there are believed to still be alive. Israel's subsequent campaign against Hamas has since killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, displaced almost the entire population of more than 2 million people, sparked a humanitarian crisis and left much of the territory in ruins.