On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to discuss topics such as achieving victory over Hamas, countering Iran, and enhancing diplomatic ties with Arab nations during his meeting with US President Donald Trump.

Tuesday’s meeting at the White House will be Trump’s first with a foreign leader since returning to office.

Against the backdrop of US and Arab mediators embarking on the challenging task of facilitating the next stage of an agreement aimed at de-escalating the conflict in Gaza and securing the release of numerous hostages held by terrorists.

Following the recent ceasefire that has seen Hamas swiftly reaffirm its authority in Gaza, the group has made it clear that they will not release the hostages designated for liberation in the upcoming phase unless the warfare ceases entirely and Israeli troops completely withdraw.

Netanyahu, who is under mounting pressure from far-right governing partners to resume the war after the first phase ends in early March, has said Israel is still committed to victory over Hamas and the return of all the hostages captured in the terrorists’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.

It’s unclear where Trump stands in all this.

He has been a staunch supporter of Israel, but has also pledged to end wars in the Middle East and took credit for helping to broker the ceasefire agreement.

The deal has halted the fighting and led to the release of 18 hostages who had been held for over 15 months, as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Netanyahu embraces Trump’s call for ‘peace through strength’

In a statement released ahead of his departure on Sunday, Netanyahu said they would discuss “victory over Hamas, achieving the release of all our hostages and dealing with the Iranian terror axis in all its components,” referring to Iran’s alliance of terror groups across the region, including Hamas.

He said that by working together, they could “strengthen security, broaden the circle of peace and achieve a remarkable era of peace through strength.”

The war began when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages.

Over 100 hostages were freed during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023, eight have been rescued alive and dozens of bodies have been recovered by Israeli forces.

Israel’s air and ground war has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities who do not say how many of the dead were fighters.

The war has left large parts of several cities in ruins and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people.

Under the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas is to release a total of 33 hostages, eight of whom Hamas says are dead, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli forces have pulled back from most areas and allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to devastated northern Gaza.

Negotiations on the second phase, in which the war would end and the remaining 60 or so hostages would be returned, are set to begin Monday.

If the United States, Qatar and Egypt are unable to broker an agreement between Israel and Hamas, the war could resume in early March.

Aspirations for a bigger deal

Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, joined the yearlong ceasefire negotiations in their final weeks last month and helped push the agreement over the finish line.

He met with Netanyahu in Israel last week and the two were expected to formally begin talks on the second phase in Washington on Monday.

Trump, who brokered normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab countries in his first term, is believed to be seeking a wider and potentially historic agreement in which Israel would forge ties with Saudi Arabia.

But the kingdom, which resisted similar entreaties from the Biden administration, has said it would only agree to such a deal if the war ends and there is a credible pathway to a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Netanyahu’s government is opposed to Palestinian statehood, and a key partner, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has threatened to leave the governing coalition if the war is not resumed next month.

That would raise the likelihood of early elections in which Netanyahu could be voted out.