Israel’s security cabinet was set to meet Monday to discuss the second phase of the government’s ceasefire deal with Hamas, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced his support for President Donald Trump‘s plan to take over the Gaza strip.
Following a call with Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, Netanyahu instructed Israel’s negotiating team to depart for the Egyptian capital of Cairo on Monday to discuss the “continuation of the implementation” of the first stage of the deal that has brought a pause to deadly fighting in Gaza, the Israeli leader’s office said in a statement on Sunday.
Netanyahu’s office said the negotiating team would receive “instructions for the continuation of negotiations on Phase B issues” after the Israeli security Cabinet’s discussion on the matter as it pushed back on reports suggesting Israel had dispatched the negotiating team under U.S. pressure.
Branding those reports “fake news,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement there had been “no American pressure to send a delegation to negotiate Phase 2.”
Still, plans for further negotiations come after Netanyahu said Sunday following a visit from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Israel and the Trump administration had formed a “joint strategy” to ensure that the “gates of hell will open” if all of the hostages who remain held captive in Gaza are not eventually released by Hamas — a key requirement of the current ceasefire deal.
He also said Israel was “committed” to Trump’s widely condemned plan to take over over Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have been killed and much of the infrastructure destroyed during Israel’s offensive in the enclave.
That campaign began after around 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks, with 251 people taken hostage into Gaza in an assault that marked a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict.
Since then, more than 48,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to local health officials, though researchers estimate the death toll could be significantly higher. At least 60% of the territory’s infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, has been destroyed, according to estimates from the United Nations.
Hailing Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza as a “revolutionary vision,” Netanyahu said the U.S. and Israel had also come up with a “joint strategy” to see it through and bring about a “completely different Gaza.”
In a meeting on Sunday with a U.S. Senate delegation led by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz further said he believed Trump’s plan for Gaza was “the only one that can guarantee security for the residents of the south and the State of Israel, in light of the lessons learned from the events of October 7.”
Hamas on Sunday accused Netanyahu of looking to “return to aggression” in Gaza as it accused Israel of “hesitation in starting the second phase of negotiations.”
The militant group also accused Israeli forces of carrying out a bombing east of Rafah city in southern Gaza, which it said killed three police officers. Video captured by NBC News’ crew on the ground in Gaza on Sunday appeared to show people mourning over their bodies after they were transported to the European Hospital in Khan Younis.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that troops had “operated to distance several suspects who approached them” and were perceived as posing a threat.
It added that forces had on Sunday fired to distance “suspicious vehicles” that were advancing north from central Gaza along a route unauthorized for passage under the ceasefire agreement and that the trucks had not been inspected, which it said violated the terms of the truce.
That came as concerns grew over the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now said in a news release on Monday that Israeli had issued a tender for the construction of nearly 1,000 additional settler housing units that could significantly expand the population of the Efrat settlement in the territory.
The organization warned that such a development would also risk further blocking the development of the nearby Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Middle East war, building and expanding Jewish settlements there that are widely considered illegal by the international community, a charge Israel rejects.
The West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem would form the internationally recognized future state Palestinians seek — and the expansion of settlements, as well as Trump’s plan to take over Gaza, presents major obstacles to that effort.
