Trump invites Israel's Netanyahu to meet with him at the White House next week

WADI GAZA, Gaza Strip (AP) — President Donald Trump has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House next week as the first foreign leader to visit in Trump's second term, Netanhayu and the White House said Tuesday.

The announcement came as the United States pressures Israel and Hamas to continue a ceasefire that has paused a devastating 15-month war in Gaza. Talks about the ceasefire's more difficult second phase, which aims to end the war, begin next Monday.

The White House letter shared by Netanyahu's office, dated Tuesday, said “I look forward to discussing how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries.”

The meeting on Feb. 4 is a chance for Netanyahu, under pressure at home, to remind the world of the support he has received from Trump over the years, and to defend Israel's conduct of the war. Last year, the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years at Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago estate.

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, and Netanyahu is likely to encourage Trump not to hold up some weapons deliveries the way the Biden administration did, though it continued other deliveries and overall military support.

Netanyahu also wants Trump to put more pressure on Iran, and renew efforts to deliver a historic normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a rival of Iran and the Arab world’s most powerful country.

Even before taking office this month, Trump was sending his special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to the region to apply pressure along with the Biden administration to get the current Gaza ceasefire achieved.

But Netanyahu has vowed to renew the war if Hamas doesn’t meet his demands in negotiations over the ceasefire's second phase, meant to discuss a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm."

Over 375,000 return to northern Gaza

Under the deal, more than 375,000 Palestinians have crossed into northern Gaza since Israel allowed their return on Monday morning, the United Nations said Tuesday. That represents over a third of the million people who fled in the war’s opening days.

Many of the Palestinians trudging along a seaside road or crossing in vehicles after security inspections were getting their first view of shattered northern Gaza under the fragile ceasefire, now in its second week.

Trump this week suggested that Egypt and Jordan take in Palestinians from Gaza, at least temporarily, so that “we just clean out that whole thing" — which Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians swiftly rejected, fearing Israel would never allow a return.

Instead, Palestinians were determined to pitch makeshift shelters or sleep outdoors amid the vast piles of broken concrete or perilously leaning buildings. After months of crowding in squalid tent camps or former schools in Gaza’s south, they would finally be home.

“It’s still better for us to be on our land than to live on a land that’s not yours,” said Fayza al-Nahal as she prepared to leave the southern city of Khan Younis for the north.

At least two Palestinians set off for the north by sea, crowding into a rowboat with a bicycle and other belongings.

Hani Al-Shanti, displaced from Gaza City, looked forward to feeling at peace in whatever he found, “even if it is a roof and walls without furniture, even if it is without a roof.” One newly returned woman hung laundry in the ruins of her home, its walls blown out.

Next steps

Under the ceasefire, the next release of hostages held in Gaza, and Palestinian prisoners from Israeli custody, is set to occur on Thursday, followed by another exchange on Saturday.

In the ceasefire’s six-week first phase, a total of 33 hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the war should be released, along with almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel this week said a list provided by Hamas confirmed the fears that eight of the 33 hostages to be freed are dead, bringing fresh grief to Israeli families who have long pressed the government to reach a deal to bring everyone home before time runs out.

On Tuesday, one of the first hostages to be released under the current ceasefire – just the second in the war – shared a glimpse of life in captivity.

Naama Levy, 20, wrote on social media that she spent most of the first 50 days alone before being reunited with other soldiers kidnapped from her military base on Oct. 7, well as other civilian captives.

“We strengthened each other until the day of our release, and also afterwards," she wrote.

Aid flows in

A surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza continued under the ceasefire.

“In this past week alone, approximately 4,200 trucks carrying aid have entered the Gaza Strip following inspections,” said Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel.

Under the deal, 600 trucks of aid are meant to enter per day.

The government of Qatar, a mediator in the ceasefire talks, said Tuesday that while complaints have been raised by both sides, no confirmed ceasefire violations have occurred that could cause the agreement to collapse.

The ceasefire is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas. Militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 assault and abducted another 250.

Israel responded with an air and ground offensive that has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

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Lidman reported from Nahariya, Israel. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war