JERUSALEM/WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President-elect Donald Trump about developments in Syria and a recent push to secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, he said on Sunday.
Netanyahu said he spoke with Trump on Saturday night about the issue, which will loom large as one of the main foreign challenges facing Trump when he takes office if it is not resolved before he is sworn in on Jan. 20.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and abducted more than 250, including Israeli-American dual nationals, during their Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, according to Israeli tallies. More than 100 hostages have been freed through negotiations or Israeli military rescue operations. Of the 100 still held in Gaza, roughly half are believed to be alive.
Israel’s response has killed almost 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, warned last week during a visit to the region that it would “not be a pretty day” if the hostages held in Gaza were not released before Trump’s inauguration.
Trump said earlier this month there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if the hostages were not released before he came into office.
A Trump spokesperson on Sunday declined to give further details about the call.
A bid by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to reach a truce that would also include a hostage deal has gained momentum in recent weeks.
Netanyahu said he had spoken with Trump about efforts to secure a hostage release. “We discussed the need to complete Israel’s victory and we spoke at length about the efforts we are making to free our hostages,” he said.
President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration is working hard to achieve a deal. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who was in the region last week, said on Thursday he believed a deal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release may be close, and deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told Reuters there was momentum in the process.
Netanyahu said he and Trump had also discussed the situation in Syria following the overthrow of President Bashar Assad. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles in the days since Assad’s ouster and moved troops into a demilitarised zone inside Syria.
“We have no interest in a conflict with Syria,” Netanyahu said in a statement. Israeli actions in Syria were intended to “thwart the potential threats from Syria and to prevent the takeover of terrorist elements near our border,” he said.
Trump and Netanyahu discuss Gaza hostages and Syria, Israeli PM says
https://arab.news/6nxpn
Trump and Netanyahu discuss Gaza hostages and Syria, Israeli PM says
- A bid by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to reach a truce that would also include a hostage deal has gained momentum in recent weeks
A man detonates explosive belt during arrest attempt in Iraq, injuring 2 security members
- The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria
- No members of the security forces were killed
BAGHDAD: A man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up Friday while a security force was trying to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, killing himself and wounding two security members, an Iraqi security official said.
The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The official added that “preliminary information” confirms that no members of the security forces were killed, while two personnel were injured and transferred for medical treatment.
Iraq’s National Security Agency said in a statement that its members besieged a hideout of a Daesh group security official and two of his bodyguards. One bodyguard ignited his explosives belt, killing him. It gave no further details.
Daesh once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremist group was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
In December, two US service members and an American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blamed on Daesh. The US carried out strikes on Syria days later in retaliation.
US and Iraqi authorities in January began transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 Daesh members held in jails run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.
