Netanyahu visits Trump, says Israel is eager to reach a cease-fire deal

At home, Netanyahu increasingly has been accused of prolonging the conflict to stave off the expected collapse of his far-right government.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

(AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump on Friday at the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years as the two sought to mend their political alliance.

Netanyahu's visit to Florida came a day after the Israeli leader met in Washington with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris has urged Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas soon so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza since Oct. 7 could return home.

The Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 39,100 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The United Nations estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

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Here’s the latest:

Netanyahu says Israel is eager to reach a U.S.-mediated deal for a cease-fire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel was eager to wrap up a U.S.-mediated deal for a cease-fire and release of hostages in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Netanyahu spoke during a visit with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, on the fifth day of a U.S. visit focused on the war.

“I hope so,’’ Netanyahu told reporters there, when asked if his trip was making progress for a deal. “But I think time will tell. We’re certainly eager to have one. And we’re working on it.”

At home in Israel, Netanyahu increasingly has been accused of prolonging the conflict to stave off the expected collapse of his far-right government when it ends. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in Gaza since a Hamas-led attack Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people in Israel.

He said Israel would be sending a team to negotiations in Rome, probably at the start of next week.

Asked about the status of talks on freeing hostages held by Hamas, Netanyahu said, “I think there’s been some movement because of the military pressure that we exerted. I hope that there will be sufficient movement to get the deal completed.”

U.N. agency pushes back against Israel’s calls to dismantle it

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees told the Security Council on Friday that the world body must “push against” Israel’s calls to dismantle the agency and raised alarms about proposed Israeli legislation that would designate the aid agency a terrorist group.

“We cannot afford this to become a new standard for future humanitarian operations in conflict zones across the world,” said Antonia De Meo, the deputy commissioner of the agency, known as UNRWA. She said the legislation, if passed, would threaten staff and the “entire U.N. system around the world.”

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is weighing measures that would brand UNRWA a “terror group” and cut diplomatic ties between Israel and the agency.

UNRWA operates schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and aid programs in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. In Gaza, it has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians during the Israel-Hamas war.

Some 199 UNRWA staffers have been killed in the war, the vast majority with their families, and 560 displaced people have been killed “while sheltering under the U.N. flag,” De Meo said. She said 190 of the agency’s buildings have been hit, and many schools that were used as shelters were demolished.

Israel has long railed against UNRWA, accusing it of tolerating or even collaborating with Hamas and of perpetuating the 76-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said for years that the agency should be dismantled.

This winter, Israel claimed that a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that prompted Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The allegations prompted more than a dozen countries to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to the agency, though the great majority have resumed their funding.

UNRWA denies Israel’s accusations, saying the agency adheres to U.N. standards of neutrality and hasn’t knowingly helped Hamas or any other militant group.

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan reiterated complaints Friday about the world body’s response to his country’s allegations of ties between UNRWA staff and Hamas.

Trump welcomes Netanyahu to Mar-a-Lago

PALM BEACH, Florida — Clasping his hand warmly, a beaming Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years on Friday, as they sought to mend an important political alliance that had broken down after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory over Trump.

Trump was waiting on the stone steps outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, to greet the Israeli leader on the fifth day of his visit to the U.S., his first trip abroad since Israel’s war with Hamas began nine months ago.

Netanyahu’s Florida trip follows a fiery address to Congress and separate talks with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, newly Trump’s Democratic rival for the presidency.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have strong political interests in getting past their differences. As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu’s top wishes from the United States.

Israel says it has

killed 500 militants in Lebanon since the start of the war

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said Friday that it has killed 500 militants in Lebanon since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, but did not provide evidence to support the claim or a breakdown of the figure.

The claim conflicts with a tally by the Associated Press, which puts the number killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon also at around 500, but including about 90 civilians. By the AP count, about 350 of those killed in Lebanon were Hezbollah fighters and 50 were allied with other militant groups.

The military did not respond to AP inquiries to provide more information on the figure, which was made public in a Friday speech to brigade commanders in Israel’s north.

The military’s commanding Officer of the Northern Command, Ori Gordin, said the military had killed more than 500 militants, the vast majority of them Hezbollah, and destroyed “thousands of infrastructure targets” across the border.

Israel and Lebanon have been exchanging cross-border fire since the day after the Hamas attack on Israel. The violence has damaged huge swaths of land on both sides of the border and killed about 20 soldiers and 13 civilians on the Israeli side of the border.

CIA director to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in Rome

WASHINGTON — CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to travel to Rome on Sunday to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials about the ongoing hostage and cease-fire negotiations, according to a U.S. official familiar with his travel plans.

The official, who was not authorized to discuss the CIA director’s travel plans and requested anonymity, said Burns would be meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel.

The meeting comes after President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris separately met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and underscored to him that it was critical for Israel and Hamas to come to agreement that will release remaining hostages and the remains of those who died in captivity.

Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is expected to head back to the Mideast next week for talks with regional leaders about the effort to reach a hostage agreement.

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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.

Israel and Hamas are in agreement on the basic framework of a deal, U.S. officials say

WASHINGTON — Israel and Hamas are in agreement on the basic framework of the three-phase deal as it was presented by President Joe Biden in late May, according to senior Biden administration officials.

Top administration officials, including Biden, have repeatedly expressed cautious optimism for weeks that a deal is close to being sealed. And families of American hostage families said that Biden and Netanyahu also left them with the sense during a White House meeting on Thursday that a deal could potentially arrive in the coming days.

But there are some serious sticking points between the two sides that still need to be resolved, the officials said.

Among the differences are Hamas’ demands that Israeli troops immediately leave the narrow strip of land between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi corridor, according to officials. Until May, Egypt had exercised full control of the roughly 14-kilometer (9-mile) strip.

Other kinks that still need to be worked out include differences on the number of Palestinian prisoners that would be released during the first phase and Israel’s push to establish a vetting system for displaced Palestinians returning to northern Gaza after a cease-fire is established, the officials said.

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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.

U.S. to halt deportation of Lebanese citizens due to conflict in Middle East

WASHINGTON — The White House announced Friday that U.S. officials will halt the deportation of Lebanese citizens who have run afoul of immigration laws because of the ongoing conflict on Lebanon’s border with Israel.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that “humanitarian conditions in southern Lebanon have significantly deteriorated” and “many civilians remain in danger” due to the ongoing low-level fighting between Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The two sides have engaged in near-daily clashes since October, which have killed around 500 people on the Lebanese side, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups, but also including some 90 civilians.

The White House statement said Biden had “determined that it is in the foreign policy interest of the United States to defer for 18 months the removal of any Lebanese national” with some exceptions, including anyone convicted of a felony or who the Secretary of Homeland Security determined “presents a danger to public safety.” The Lebanese citizens would be authorized to work during that period.

U.S. diplomats have been attempting to broker an end to the hostilities on the Lebanon-Israel border amid fears that the conflict might blow up into a full-on war that could become a regional conflagration. Hezbollah has said it will halt its fire only when there is a cease-fire in Gaza, while Israeli officials have threatened an invasion or expanded military operation in Lebanon in an attempt to drive the militant group back from the border.

Israel extends its ban on Al-Jazeera

JERUSALEM — An Israeli court decided Friday to extend the ban on Al-Jazeera in Israel for over a month, bolstering the far-right government’s attempt to permanently bar the news agency from operating in the country.

With the decision, the state’s order to bar Al-Jazeera from operating in Israel is valid for another 45 days. It’s the third extension since the order was enacted in May, confiscating the channel’s broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites. It’s believed to be the first time Israel has shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in country.

In the Friday decision, obtained by the AP, Judge Hagai Brenner wrote that the state had provided convincing evidence — which he did not make public — that Al-Jazeera’s coverage posed a security threat to Israel, including confidential information indicating that Al-Jazeera’s journalists in the Gaza Strip were embedded with militant organizations. He argued that Al-Jazeera’s coverage has incited specific acts of violence against Israelis and revealed activities of the Israeli military in Gaza.

“I did not determine that these broadcasts are made with the intention of deliberately harming the security of the state, and there is certainly a lot of journalistic interest in them,” he wrote in the decision, “But their harm is bad and risks the lives of the IDF fighters and the home front.”

Since the ban began in May, Al-Jazeera has moved many of its English-language service correspondents operating in Israel to Amman, Jordan. Others still operate from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Netanyahu says he met with billionaire Elon Musk in Washington after his speech to Congress

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has met with billionaire Elon Musk in Washington following his speech to the U.S. Congress.

Writing on the social media platform X, Netanyahu said Friday he and Musk discussed Artificial Intelligence and “technological cooperation with Israel” during their meeting Wednesday. He posted a picture of the two men shaking hands.

Musk was present at Netanyahu’s address to Congress and has been an ally of Israel throughout the war. The Tesla CEO did not make any public statement about the meeting with Netanyahu.

Musk announced Wednesday that his satellite internet service Starlink was active for a hospital in Gaza, a move made in coordination with Israel.

Gaza has experienced frequent communications blackouts as the infrastructure crumbles with months of fighting and a lack of fuel.

Israel’s far-right lawmakers criticize US Vice President Kamala Harris’ call for a cease-fire deal

JERUSALEM — Israel’s far-right lawmakers criticized United States Vice President Kamala Harris’ call for a cease-fire deal to end the war in Gaza.

“There will be no end to the war, Mrs candidate,” Israeli National Security Adviser Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote Friday on X. Ben-Gvir is one of the most visible right-wing ministers and a key ultranationalist ally to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Harris, who is backed by enough delegates to become Democratic nominee in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, met Thursday with Netanyahu in Washington, saying that bringing home hostages was imperative and describing widespread suffering among Gaza’s civilian population as fighting continues.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, claimed Harris had “revealed” that a cease-fire deal amounted to surrendering to Hamas. “It is forbidden to fall into this trap!” he wrote.

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are opposed to a cease-fire deal in Gaza and say Israel should continue fighting until Hamas is vanquished. Netanyahu is accused by many in Israel of drawing out the war, partially to appease them. Their combined resignations would be enough to topple the Prime Minister’s coalition government and prompt new elections.

Militants in Gaza hold about 115 hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7. Many of the hostages are believed to be dead.

‘The human suffering is unacceptable,’ Canada, New Zealand and Australia say in a joint call for an urgent cease-fire in Gaza

CANBERRA, Australia — Canada, Australia and New Zealand issued a joint statement Friday on the need for an urgent cease-fire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue,” the statement from the three prime ministers said.

“Israel must listen to the concerns of the international community. The protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law. Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas. It must end,” the statement said.

The prime ministers said they were “gravely concerned” about the prospect of further escalation across the region and condemned Iran’s mid-April attack on Israel. They also called on Iran to refrain from further destabilizing actions in the Middle East and demanded that Iran and its affiliated groups, including Hezbollah, cease their attacks.

Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, saying it aimed to ease pressure on Gaza. The exchange of fire and airstrikes, which has been limited to a few kilometers (miles) on each side of the border, has displaced tens of thousands of people in both countries.

A West Bank Hamas leader dies in Israeli custody

RAMALLAH, West Bank — A Hamas leader in the occupied West Bank died in Israeli custody Thursday evening after a deterioration in his health, according to a Palestinian prisoners rights group.

Sheikh Mustafa Abu Arra, 63, was arrested in October and was recently transferred from Ramon Prison to Soroka hospital where he died, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said.

The rights group said Abu Ara was subjected to “torture and starvation” during his detention, and did not receive adequate medical treatment. The group did not elaborate further. Israel’s prison authorities have not commented on the circumstances of Abu Ara’s death, and could not immediately be reached.

Abu Ara was arrested shortly after the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war under a process known as administrative detention, the group said, whereby detainees can be held indefinitely for security reasons without trial and charge. Rights groups and recently released Palestinian detainees say conditions in Israeli-run prisons have deteriorated since the Israel-Hamas war broke out.

Since the early 1990s, Abu Ara was arrested several times and spent roughly 12 years in Israeli-run prisons, the prisoners group and Hamas said.

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