Dozens reportedly killed in strike on Gaza cafe as Netanyahu agrees to meet Trump

8 hours ago 2

Washington: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will return to Washington next week to meet with US President Donald Trump under the weight of heavy expectation for a new ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

Trump, having helped broker a truce between Israel and Iran last week after the US bombed key Iranian nuclear facilities, has made clear that ending hostilities in the wartorn Palestinian territory is his next priority.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in April.

“MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!” he posted on social media at the weekend.

Confirmation of the imminent visit, which came from a White House official on Tuesday (AEST), suggests a development of some form may be on the cards. Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, is already in Washington engaging in talks with administration officials.

It has been more than three months since Israel broke an earlier ceasefire agreement with terrorist group Hamas, which was negotiated under the Biden administration. That agreement began just before Trump’s inauguration. Israel and the US blamed Hamas’ refusal to release more hostages for the resumption of hostilities.

Since March 18, near-daily Israeli fire has killed more than 6000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Palestinians walk through the ruins of a Gaza City cafe after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Monday.

Israeli forces killed at least 74 people in Gaza overnight, witnesses and health officials said. One airstrike hit a seaside cafe in Gaza City crowded with women and children, Ali Abu Ateila, who was inside Al-Baqa Cafe, said. “Without a warning, all of a sudden, a warplane hit the place, shaking it like an earthquake,” he told the Associated Press.

Dozens were wounded, many critically, and 30 people were killed, the head of the Health Ministry’s emergency and ambulance service in northern Gaza, Fares Awad, said. It was one of only a few businesses to continue operating during the 20-month war in Gaza and was a gathering spot for residents seeking internet access and a place to charge their phones. Videos circulating on social media showed bloodied and disfigured bodies on the ground and the wounded being carried away in blankets.

Israeli forces also killed 11 people who had been seeking food in southern Gaza, according to witnesses, hospitals, and Gaza’s Health Ministry.

In Israel, the Jerusalem District Court cancelled this week’s scheduled hearings in Netanyahu’s long-running corruption trial, accepting a request made by the Israeli leader citing classified diplomatic and security grounds.

A Palestinian stands on the beach outside the cafe hit in Gaza City.

Israeli media reported the country’s president, Isaac Herzog, would meet with former Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak on Tuesday evening, Israel time, to discuss ways in which the trial might be brought to an end. Barak has previously said any deal in which Netanyahu escapes trial must involve him leaving office.

Trump has recently involved himself in the matter by publicly declaring the corruption trial was “terrible” and claiming it interfered with negotiations.

“How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING (Cigars, Bugs Bunny Doll, etc.),” Trump posted on the weekend.

“It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure. This travesty of ‘Justice’ will interfere with both Iran and Hamas negotiations. In other words, it is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu.”

Trump also issued a thinly veiled threat, adding: “The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday (AEST) that Trump was simply emphasising his empathy for Netanyahu. “He, too, was a victim of a judicial system that was trying to put him in jail,” she said.

Netanyahu has publicly thanked Trump for his support, vowing that together the two of them will “make the Middle East great again”.

But Trump’s intervention in the case has been polarising among Israelis, with some arguing it is inappropriate and portrays Israel as effectively a protectorate or client state of the US.

In the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, writer Yossi Verter said the trial was “dissolving before our very eyes” and Trump’s meddling was the final straw. “The proceeding has become a total joke, and it wasn’t all too serious to begin with,” he wrote.

Netanyahu faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust for accepting more than $US200,000 ($304,000) in luxury gifts, while granting regulatory favours to prominent businessmen.

While in office, US president Joe Biden also made comments about domestic matters surrounding the trial, urging Netanyahu to “walk away” from planned judicial reforms that would have allowed the government to override Supreme Court decisions.

with Reuters, AP

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