Netanyahu to visit White House again next week as Trump pushes for Gaza ceasefire

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House next week for talks with President Donald Trump, a US official has said, as Washington ramps up the pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The 7 July visit – Netanyahu’s third since Trump returned to power in January – comes after Trump said that he hoped for a truce in Palestine within a week.

A Trump administration official confirmed the visit to AFP on condition of anonymity.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier that Netanyahu had “expressed interest” in a meeting with Trump and that both sides were “working on a date.

“This has been a priority for the president since he took office, to end this brutal war in Gaza,” Leavitt told reporters in a briefing.

“It’s heartbreaking to see the images that have come out from both Israel and Gaza throughout this war, and the president wants to see it end.”

A senior Israeli official, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, is due to visit the White House this week for talks to lay the ground for Netanyahu’s visit, Leavitt said.

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Netanyahu became the first foreign leader to visit Trump in his second term in February, when the US president surprised him by suddenly announcing a plan for the United States to “take over” Gaza.

The Israeli premier visited again in April.

The end of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran has provided a window of opportunity for a deal, with Trump keen to add another peace agreement to a series of recent deals he has brokered.

“We think even next week, we’re going to get a ceasefire,” Trump told reporters on Friday.

He followed up by pressing Israel in a post on his Truth Social network on Sunday to “make the deal in Gaza”.

But on the ground, Israel has continued to conduct assaults across Gaza.

Israeli forces killed at least 45 people in airstrikes in Gaza today, and shot dead another 22 people as they waited to get desperately needed food at aid distribution sites, according to witnesses and health officials.

One strike on a café in Gaza City, which was crowded with women and children, killed at least 30 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. 

Elsewhere in the region, Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.