Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington for Gaza ceasefire talks
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to begin talks today on brokering a second phase of the ceasefire with Hamas, his office said, as he visits the new Trump administration in Washington.
Ahead of his departure, Netanyahu told reporters he would discuss “victory over Hamas”, without defining what this would mean in practical terms, contending with Iran and freeing all hostages when he meets with the US President on Tuesday.
It will be Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader since returning to the White House in January, a prioritisation Netanyahu called “telling”.
“I think it’s a testimony to the strength of the Israeli-American alliance,” he said before boarding his flight.
He was welcomed to the US capital on Sunday night by Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, who stressed the coming Trump-Netanyahu meeting would strengthen “the deep alliance between Israel and the United States and will enhance our cooperation”.
Netanyahu’s office said he would begin discussions with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday over terms for the second phase of the truce.
The initial, 42-day phase of the deal is due to end next month. The next stage is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and to include discussions on a more permanent end to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Key events
Hamas officials say ’ready’ for negotiations on phase two of Gaza truce
More to follow…
Gaza must be demilitarised before it is rebuilt, says Former IDF chief
The Gaza Strip must be demilitarised before it is rebuilt, says former deputy prime minister and IDF chief Benny Gantz.
“The transition to phase two of the hostage deal must include the replacement of the Hamas regime and the demilitarization of Gaza,” the former war cabinet minister tells reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
“The reconstruction efforts in Gaza must be conditioned on the replacement of the Hamas regime. Either Gaza will be demilitarized – or it will remain demolished. That must be the condition for reconstruction, in coordination with the United States and the world.”
Gantz insists that Israel must ensure that Hamas is not able to access humanitarian aid meant for Gazan civilians and argues that “even after the Hamas regime is replaced, it will remain the strongest military force in Gaza – we must not allow for that to happen.”
“Once it is replaced and is cut off from its financial sources, we must hunt every Hamas terrorist in every last tunnel and hideout,” he argues.
He adds that it is now also time “to dismantle the Iranian nuclear project.”
Qatar, a key mediator in the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel which came into effect late last month, has launched an air bridge from Jordan to al-Qarara in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis to bring vital medical supplies into the territory.
In a statement, Qatar’s foreign ministry said the bridge will help to ease the acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza and help with the “medical needs” of the population.
The ministry added in the post on X that since the beginning of the truce (on 19 January – the day before Trump’s inauguration) Qatar has sent 65 relief trucks through the Jordanian border.
Here are some fuller quotes from the presidency of the Palestinian Authority condemning the Israeli military’s deadly raids across the occupied West Bank (see post at 11.39 where we mentioned that the office of Palestinian president Mahmud denounced the raids as “ethnic cleansing”).
In a statement, spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said:
These aggressive policies carried out by the occupation forces in the West Bank have led to the death of 29 citizens, hundreds of wounded and detainees, in addition to the destruction of entire residential blocks in the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps, the displacement of thousands of citizens, and massive destruction of infrastructure.
He called on the Trump administration to intervene “before it is too late to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression, which will lead to an uncontrollable escalation, with consequences that everyone will bear”.
‘Amnesty’s primary message is that genocide has been committed,’ says charity’s secretary-general
The head of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, says Israel must be held accountable for the “genocide” that has been “committed,” adding that the current ceasefire must not mean that we forget what happened over the last 15 months.
“In fact, if you have any sense of the future, you need a reckoning for the past. Amnesty’s primary message is that genocide has been committed, and accountability must be delivered for it,” the secretary-general told Al Jazeera.
“Regarding the few states that refuse to acknowledge the evidence, it is clearly a position that is political, it is not a legal or empirical position.”
Callamard said Amnesty is paying close attention to the events unfolding in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has been carrying out raids every day for the last fortnight.
What we do know and what we have investigated in the past, demonstrate a multiplication of violations, including of the responsibility of Israel as the occupier. Let’s recall that Israel is unlawfully occupying the West Bank, and it has a responsibility under international law as a military occupier and clearly, every one of those responsibilities are being violated right now,” she said.
Are we looking at war crimes? It will demand a number of analyses that we have not conducted yet. But there is absolutely no doubt that human rights violations are being committed, including the unlawful destruction of Palestinian property, and unlawful detention, and forced displacement. Will that amount to committing genocide? It will take more time to reach that conclusion.
Despite the ceasefire agreement, the future of Palestinian refugees in Egypt remains uncertain.
Some are determined to return to what’s left of their homes as soon as they have the chance: “There is nothing better than one’s country and land,” Hussien Farahat, a father of two, told Reuters.
Meanwhile, others are inert, not knowing what to do or what will become of them, as they fear they may not have a home to go back to after Israel’s campaign of destruction, but they know they can’t stay where they are.
“Even if the war were over, we still do not know our fate and nobody mentioned those stranded in Cairo. Are we going back, or what will happen to us? And if we go back, what will happen to us? Our houses are gone,” said Abeer Kamal, who has lived in Cairo since November 2023 and sells handmade bags with her sisters.
“There is nothing, not my house, or my family, or siblings, nothing,” she said.
Thousands of Palestinians reject the prospect of a mass displacement proposed by President Donald Trump, Reuters reports.
A lot of people are torn, and I am one of them,” said Shorouk, who earns a living selling Palestinian food in Cairo, going by the name Gaza Girl.
Do you choose to go back and sit in the destruction and a place that still needs to be reconstructed or stay and go back when it is reconstructed?
We, the people of Gaza, can only live in Gaza. If they give us residencies, the cause will be lost.”
Trump’s proposal to “clean out” Gaza and relocate millions of Palestinians to neighbouring Egypt and Jordan has been comprehensively denounced across the Middle East as ethnic cleansing.
“You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said. Asked if it would a temporary or long-term solution, he said: “Could be either”.
One hundred thousand Palestinians are sheltering in Egypt, and many say they do not know how or when they can go home. However, the majority of the 2.3 million Palestinians made homeless remain in temporary shelters within Gaza’s borders.
70 people killed in West Bank in 2025, says health ministry
The Palestinian ministry of health says the Israeli military have killed at least 70 people, including 10 children in the West Bank since the beginning of 2025.
Thirty eight were killed in Jenin; 15 in Tubas; six in Nablus; five in Tulkarem; three in Hebron; two in Bethlehem; and one in Jerusalem.
As well as killing ten children, the Israeli military killed one woman and two elderly Palestinians.
The occupied West Bank has seen a surge in violence since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, with Israel launching near-daily military arrest raids. There has also been a rise in settler violence against Palestinian people and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Since October 2023, over 880 Palestinians have been killed across the occupied West Bank in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers, according to reports, while another 6,700 or so have been injured and at least 14,400 have been detained.
Palestinian presidency accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in West Bank
The office of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has said the ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank amounts to “ethnic cleansing” and urged the US to intervene.
In a statement, spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the presidency “condemned the occupation authorities’ expansion of their comprehensive war on our Palestinian people in the West Bank to implement their plans aimed at displacing citizens and ethnic cleansing”.
Israeli forces say they are targeting Palestinian militants across the West Bank. The UN has raised concerns, however, about “the use of unlawful lethal force in (the city of) Jenin”. The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees has said that almost all of the Jenin camp’s 20,000 residents have been displaced over the past two months.
The Jenin operation has been accompanied by increased restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement across the West Bank, with hundreds of checkpoints introduced in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Palestinian Authority, which is led by Abbas and is a Hamas rival, exercises limited governance over the West Bank where around 3 million Palestinians live and over which Israel maintains overall military control.
At least 25 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli military operation began in Jenin, including nine members of armed groups, a 73-year-old man and a two-year-old girl, according to Palestinian officials (see post at 08.33 for more details).
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires out of northern Gaza, where Palestinian people continue to return to their homes which have largely been turned to rubble by relentless Israeli bombardment over the war:
Palestinian people carry plastic bags filled with bread in Gaza City. Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Talks between Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, at the presidential palace in the Turkish capital of Ankara will focus on “joint steps to be taken for economic recovery, sustainable stability and security” in Syria, Fahrettin Altun, head of communications at the presidency, said.
“We believe that the Turkey-Syria relations, which were re-established after Syria regained its freedom, will be strengthened and gain dimension,” he added.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel group which led the military operation to topple the former president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, will visit Turkey on Tuesday on his second international visit since the rebel offensive.
Sharaa “will pay a visit to Ankara on Tuesday at the invitation of our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” Fahrettin Altun, head of communications at the presidency, wrote in a post on X.
Sharaa, who last week was appointed president of Syria for a “transitional period”, has been trying to gain support from Arab and western leaders since Assad was toppled in December.
Since the fall of Assad, al-Sharaa, who was officially designated a terrorist by the US in 2013 because of his former leadership of al-Nusra Front, a splinter group of al-Qaida, has struck a conciliatory tone, calling for Syrian unity, the protection of minorities and the disbanding of rebel factions. But some officials believe it is too early to assess his sincerity.
Since Syrian rebels launched an offensive to take the country in November, Turkish-backed fighters have targeted Kurdish forces, taking a number of towns. Meanwhile, the Turkish military has maintained pressure on Kurdish fighters in both Syria and northern Iraq.
Iran warns against ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians after Trump’s Gaza proposal
Iran has condemned Donald Trump’s widely criticised proposal to relocate Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip to neighbouring countries, warning it would amount to “ethnic cleansing”.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei has been quoted by the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency saying that the international community should help Palestinians “secure their right to self-determination… rather than pushing for other ideas that would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing”.
As a reminder, Trump caused outrage last weekend when he proposed that large numbers of Palestinian people should leave Gaza in order to “just clean out” the whole strip, saying neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Egypt should take in more Palestinians, either temporarily or for the long term. The Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the US’s regional allies were among those who condemned Trump’s proposal.
Jordan is already home to several million Palestinians, while tens of thousands live in Egypt. Both countries and other Arab nations reject the idea of Palestinians in Gaza being moved to their countries.
Israeli forces destroy buildings in Jenin as deadly raid continues
Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting that the Israeli military is continuing its raid on the West Bank city of Jenin for the 14th consecutive day, which the outlet says has killed at least 25 Palestinian people, injured dozens of others and has involved the demolition of dozens of homes. A spokesperson for the Israeli army said 23 buildings were destroyed on Sunday in Jenin “to prevent terrorist infrastructure from being established there”.
The city’s mayor, Mohammad Jarar, was quoted as saying that about 15,000 people were displaced from the Jenin camp and the al-Hadaf neighbourhood, while Israeli soldiers driving bulldozers are, according to Wafa, “destroying homes” in the al-Damj neighbourhood.
A 73-year-old man was killed by Israeli gunfire in Jenin’s refugee camp, the Palestinian health ministry said yesterday, the latest casualty in Israel’s military operation on the city, which Benjamin Netanyahu says was launched to “eradicate terrorism” in the area.
Jenin’s refugee camp, one of 19 across the West Bank built in the aftermath of Israel’s creation in 1948 to house displaced Palestinians, is a centre of armed Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Since the start of the war in October 2023, which has sparked a wave of violence in the West Bank, Israel has raided or carried out airstrikes in Jenin multiple times, killing dozens and leaving a trial of heavy destruction there.
The UN has expressed concern that the ceasefire in Gaza could be endangered by Israel’s military tactics in the West Bank, which have involved what the UN human rights spokesperson labelled “unnecessary or disproportionate use of force”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who was one of the first to congratulate Donald Trump when he beat Kamala Harris in the November US presidential election, has called the Republican president the “best friend Israel has ever had in the White House”.
During Trump’s first term, he delivered significant diplomatic wins for the Israeli prime minister, including recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019 and supporting the Abraham accords with Gulf states.
Last month, Trump said he had ordered the resumption of shipments of some of the largest bombs to Israel after Joe Biden had paused delivery of them over concerns about their use in densely populated Gaza.
In this story, my colleague Peter Beaumont writes that, while allies, Netanyahu and Trump have competing agendas coming into their meeting tomorrow. Here is an extract from his piece:
On Trump’s side is the apparent desire to have quiet in the Middle East to pursue his policy of widening the 2020 Abraham accords – in which Israel established relations with Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates during his first term – to include Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has made clear that any progress depends on an end to the conflict in Gaza or the establishment of a path towards Palestinian statehood.
On Netanyahu’s side, the objective – according to Israeli officials who briefed the Axios news website – is to understand where Trump stands on the planned start of negotiations for the second phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal, which Netanyahu was reluctantly pushed into by Trump.
Those talks are supposed to begin on Monday, the 16th day of phase one of the ceasefire. But it now looks unlikely they will start until after the Trump-Netanyahu meeting, which has been characterised as an attempt to find a joint US-Israeli position going into the talks.
Other key issues likely to dominate the meeting are a “day after” plan for Gaza, not least how it will be run and by whom, and what position to take on Iran.
Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington for Gaza ceasefire talks
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to begin talks today on brokering a second phase of the ceasefire with Hamas, his office said, as he visits the new Trump administration in Washington.
Ahead of his departure, Netanyahu told reporters he would discuss “victory over Hamas”, without defining what this would mean in practical terms, contending with Iran and freeing all hostages when he meets with the US President on Tuesday.
It will be Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader since returning to the White House in January, a prioritisation Netanyahu called “telling”.
“I think it’s a testimony to the strength of the Israeli-American alliance,” he said before boarding his flight.
He was welcomed to the US capital on Sunday night by Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, who stressed the coming Trump-Netanyahu meeting would strengthen “the deep alliance between Israel and the United States and will enhance our cooperation”.
Netanyahu’s office said he would begin discussions with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday over terms for the second phase of the truce.
The initial, 42-day phase of the deal is due to end next month. The next stage is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and to include discussions on a more permanent end to Israel’s war on Gaza.
