U.S. President Donald Trump said he would discuss Gaza with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and expressed hope that an agreement could be reached by the end of the week to implement a 60-day cease-fire in Gaza.
“He’s coming over later. We’re going to be talking about, I would say, almost exclusively Gaza. We’ve got to get that solved,” Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“It’s a tragedy, and he wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to,” he added, referring to ongoing talks aimed at ending Israel’s deadly military campaign in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said he was hopeful that indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, currently underway in Qatar, could lead to a breakthrough.
“We are hopeful that by the end of this week we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day cease-fire,” Witkoff said, adding that the deal would include the release of 10 live captives and the return of the remains of nine others.
