President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, as Washington looks to create fresh momentum for a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza that appears in danger of stalling before a complicated second phase.
This marks Netanyahu's fifth meeting with Trump since he returned to office in January, and their first in-person discussion since Trump visited Israel in October to mark the start of the ceasefire's initial phase.
On the agenda at Mar-a-Lago are several critical issues: the continued implementation of the American 20-point plan for Gaza, the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's attempts to regroup after a joint Israeli-American attack over the summer, and a possible agreement between Israel and the new leadership in Syria.
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that Trump has championed has mostly held, but progress has slowed recently. Although the ceasefire officially began in October, Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 Palestinians—most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials—while Palestinian militants have killed three Israeli soldiers.
If successful, the second phase would see the rebuilding of a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision by a group chaired by Trump known as the Board of Peace, which would oversee Gaza's reconstruction under a two-year, renewable U.N. mandate. The United Arab Emirates has reportedly agreed to fund the reconstruction, including new communities.
Experts note significant challenges ahead. "This is going to be a really tall order for President Trump to get Netanyahu to agree," said Mona Yacoubian of the Middle East Program at CSIS, highlighting the many facets of the second phase that Israel's leader doesn't support.
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