Netanyahu denies he spoke to Trump, after report says they discussed Gaza talks
Axios had reported that PM, Republican candidate held a phone call in which the former US president intended to encourage Netanyahu to accept a deal
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday denied a report that he had a phone call with US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in which they discussed the negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal.
“Contrary to media reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not speak yesterday with former President Donald Trump,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
Earlier, a report by Axios citing two unnamed US officials said the two spoke by phone on Wednesday.
The report said the contents of the call were not known, but one of the sources told Axios that Trump intended to encourage Netanyahu to accept the deal, which would see at least some of the hostages being held captive by Hamas released in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
The news site said Netanyahu’s office did not deny the call, while Trump’s campaign declined to comment.
On Wednesday night, Netanyahu confirmed that he had approved sending a high-level delegation to Qatar for another round of talks on Thursday that is seen as a potential last chance to strike a deal with Hamas.
It was unclear on Wednesday, however, whether Hamas would take part in the negotiations.
The Israeli framework for a deal issued on May 27 includes three stages, with the first six-week period seeing a pause in Israeli ground operations and withdrawal of troops in exchange for the release of 33 hostages in the categories of women, children, elderly and wounded, alongside Israel freeing 990 Palestinian prisoners.
Last month, Trump called for a quick end to the war in Gaza and the return of the hostages during an interview with Fox. He echoed the call for the hostages to be released immediately during a meeting with Netanyahu the next day at his home in Mar-a-Lago.
The war in Gaza has been ongoing for 10 months since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel in which thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
In response, Israel launched a ground invasion in Gaza with the proclaimed objective of dismantling Hamas and getting the hostages back.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle as of May and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
Meanwhile, it is believed that 111 of the hostages remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 24 hostages have also been recovered, including three abductees mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Talks for another hostage deal have repeatedly stalled over the last few months as both Israel and Hamas accuse each other of sabotaging the deal and making unreasonable demands.
