Trump Urges Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to 'End' War: Report
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Donald Trump reportedly grew "upset" after seeing images of Gazan children and babies, and is privately urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring his country's military campaign in Gaza to an end, according to senior White House officials.
Trump was especially disturbed by images of Palestinian children wounded or killed in airstrikes, officials told Axios, and pressed Israeli leadership to resume humanitarian aid. That pressure reportedly played a role in Israel's Sunday cabinet decision to allow limited supplies, including baby food and other essentials, back into the territory.
"The president is frustrated about what is happening in Gaza," one official said. "He wants the war to end, he wants the hostages to come home, he wants aid to go in and he wants to start rebuilding Gaza."
The Israeli military is pursuing a renewed push to its operation to control Gaza while relocating the Strip's 2 million residents to a so-called "humanitarian zone" as ceasefire negotiations show little progress.
Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has been working both sides of the table: in direct talks with Netanyahu and his adviser Ron Dermer, and through a backchannel to Hamas.
Despite the lack of movement, the White House is resisting the suggestion that Trump's support for Israel is wavering. His hostage envoy, Adan Boehler, told Fox News on Monday that reports claiming the U.S. is threatening to abandon Israel are "fake."
Boehler insisted: "The President may be saying, 'Hey, listen, let's try to end the war,' he might speak strongly… But his support is ironclad."
Even so, the conflict is clearly testing the relationship between the two leaders, Axios journalist Barak Ravid reported.
"There is a lot of frustration by this crisis getting dragged on," a second White House official told him, describing the war as a distraction from Trump's broader regional ambitions.
Trump, who viewed his recent trip to the Middle East as a success, is said to believe Gaza is the last major obstacle to securing a longer-term peace and a legacy-defining win.
The bullshit meter just exploded. Trump has either been running for president or been president since the day the war in Gaza began, and he is just now learning that children are being killed? What does he do all day? Oh thats right, he tweets about communist judges and making Christmas Christmas again and how Taylor Swift is no no longer "hot".
Someone posted a seed the other day about how the US is no longer a serious country. Here you go.
Maybe he's finally growing a heart?
the heart of a cockroach ...
The Israeli mission in Gaza went off the rails a while ago. Yesterday, multiple countries in Europe urged Netanyahu to end it.
I totally get wanting to defeat Hamas, but you’re never going to make them disappear completely. Look at the effort to defeat the Nazis in WWII, but Nazis still exist. You can’t exterminate an idea - especially not with guns.
Meanwhile Israel is blocking aid and trying to forcibly move whole populations. A justifiable war of self defense is morphing into genocide.
If Trump is finally catching on to all this…good. I don’t hold out a lot of hope that he’ll do much about it, but if he does, also good.