Tel Aviv — President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second time in two days on Tuesday at the White House. They discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and, Netanyahu stressed, to secure the release of the 50 Israeli hostages still thought to be held in the decimated Palestinian territory — 20 of whom the Israeli leader recently said were still alive.
Netanyahu, in a video message shared on social media after his second meeting with Mr. Trump, said Israel would not relent in its mission to “achieve all of our goals,” which he said include “the elimination of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, thereby ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.”
Delegations from Israel and Hamas, which has long been designated a terrorist group by Israel and the U.S., are in Qatar negotiating over the precise terms of a potential deal. But while the talks continue, so does the war.
Officials at the Nasser Hospital, in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, said Wednesday that 40 people were killed in fresh Israeli airstrikes, including 17 women and 10 children. The Israeli military, which has long accused Hamas of hiding weapons and militants in and underneath civilian infrastructure, said it struck more than 100 terrorist targets in Gaza over the past day.
President Trump described the war in Gaza this week as a tragedy that he “wants to get solved.” For Gaza’s hungry, displaced population of more than 2 million people, a ceasefire can’t come soon enough.
The proposal currently on the table should, if the details can be hammered out, enable an immediate surge of food, medicine and other emergency supplies into Gaza to relieve the acute misery and desperation caused by 21 months of war.
It would also end the relentless military strikes — which the Israel Defense Forces insist only target Hamas, but which have killed thousands of civilians, too, many of them women and children. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures, nearly 60,000 people have been killed in the narrow coastal enclave during the war.
Many Israelis also long for a ceasefire. On Tuesday, funerals were held for five young soldiers killed in an explosion in Gaza.
The continued fighting, and the continued captivity of 50 Israelis, is prolonging a national trauma that began with the Hamas-orchestrated terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which saw some 1,200 people murdered and 251 others taken hostage.
One of the Israelis still believed to be held alive in Gaza is Evyatar David, who was last seen in February when Hamas made him and fellow captive Guy Dallal watch as other hostages were released during a temporary truce.
David’s brother Ilay told CBS News the family prays he will be next, but they are too afraid to hope.
Ilay said the family constantly brace themselves for disappointment.
“We kind of learned how to protect our souls,” he said. “And it’s not only us, it’s our nation, which is torn apart.”
The proposed solution currently on the table, according to an official familiar with the negotiations, would bring a 60-day ceasefire, during which time Hamas would hand over some of the remaining Israeli hostages, and Israel’s military would halt its offensive and pull back forces from some areas in Gaza.
In a sign that the negotiators may be close to a deal, Mr. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to return to Qatar this week.