The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they happen.
Father of slain US-Israeli hostage ‘shocked’ by Trump’s call for US takeover of Gaza
The father of American-Israeli Cpt. Omer Maxim Neutra, who was killed and abducted by Hamas during the terror group’s October 2023 attack, says he’s “shocked” by President Donald Trump’s call for the United States to take over Gaza.
“We didn’t know about this, but it’s clear this move was not spontaneous. We want to remind Trump and Netanyahu that human lives are at stake,” Ronen Neutra tells the Ynet news site, saying the return of the hostages must be the top priority.
His comments come after hostage families cancelled a planned press conference in Washington.
Rubio says US ready to ‘Make Gaza Beautiful Again’ after Trump calls for takeover
“Gaza MUST BE FREE from Hamas. As [US President Donald Trump] shared today, the United States stands ready to lead and Make Gaza Beautiful Again. Our pursuit is one of lasting peace in the region for all people,” US Secretary State Marco Rubio tweets after Trump called for the US to “take over” Gaza and clear it up all Palestinians.
Witkoff: Better life for Palestinians not necessarily tied to the physical space they now inhabit
WASHINGTON — US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff says Palestinians need not be tied to the land where they now live in order to have a better life, as the Trump administration rallies around the president’s idea to relocate Palestinians out of Gaza.
“Peace in the region means a better life for the Palestinians. A better life is not necessarily tied to the physical space that you are in today,” Witkoff says in an interview with Fox News.
“A better life is about better opportunity, better financial conditions, better aspirations for you and your family. That doesn’t occur because you get to pitch a tent in the Gaza Strip and you’re surrounded by 30,000 munitions that could go off at any moment,” Witkoff says.
“The president is saying, ‘Let’s make it better for these people. Let’s give them more hope. Let them make that choice.’ And I think he’s right,” he adds.
Asked what message Trump is trying to send to the Middle East after the president declared that he wants the US to “own” Gaza, Witkoff responds, “He’s telling the Middle East that the last 50 years of doing things was not the correct way of doing things, and he’s going to change it up.
He “is telling the Middle East he wants to be transparent with the Palestinian people,” he says.
“Gaza today is uninhabitable and will probably be uninhabitable for at least the next 10 to 15 years,” Witkoff adds.
Witkoff said earlier Tuesday that he will meet on Thursday with the prime minister of Qatar to discuss the ongoing hostage talks.
Australian PM stresses backing for two-state solution after Trump floats Gaza takeover
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his government supports a two-state solution in the Middle East, following US President Donald Trump’s shock announcement of plans to take over the Gaza Strip.
“Australia’s position is the same as it was this morning, as it was last year,” Albanese tells a news conference.
“The Australian government supports on a bipartisan basis, a two-state solution.”
Senior GOP lawmaker says his constituents will ‘not be excited’ about Trump’s Gaza plan
Republican Senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham lightly pushes back against the US president’s plan for the US to take over Gaza.
“I think that would be an interesting proposal. We’ll see what our Arab friends say about that. I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza. It might be problematic,” says the South Carolina senator, according to Jewish Insider.
Netanyahu: Trump’s Gaza plan ‘could change history’
Prime Minister Netanyahu is asked whether he sees US President Donald Trump’s plan for a US takeover of Gaza as “a way to expand the boundaries of Israel.”
Netanyahu says one of his war goals is to ensure that Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again.
But “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level,” he says. “He sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of such much terrorism, so many attacks against us… He has a different idea.”
“I think it’s worth paying attention to this,” Netanyahu goes on. “We’re talking about it. He’s exploring it with his people, with his staff. I think it’s something that could change history, and it’s worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”
He notes that during the current “temporary ceasefire,” one Hamas leader said the terror group intends “to do October 7 again, except we’ll do it bigger.”
Netanyahu says there can’t be peace in the region if the “toxic, murderous” Hamas is left standing, any more than you could make peace in Europe after World War II if the Nazi regime and army were left standing. “You want a different future? You gotta knock out the people who want to destroy you and destroy peace. That’s what we’re going to do,” he says.
This, in turn, will “usher in the peace with Saudi Arabia and with others.”
On Iran, he endorses Trump’s declaration that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon: “We fully agree with that. If this goal can be achieved by a maximum pressure campaign, so be it.”
The most important thing “is to focus on the goal, which the president just did.”
Trump weighs in at this point, saying of Netanyahu: “He doesn’t want to do what some people think will automatically happen, because [the Iranian regime] are very difficult people to deal with, as you know. If we could solve this problem without warfare, without all of the things that you’ve been witnessing over the last number of years, I think it would be a tremendous thing.”
Asked whether he’d back an Israeli strike on Iran, Trump responds, “We’ll have to see what happens.”
Countering Trump, Saudi Arabia reiterates it won’t form ties with Israel without Palestinian state
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia reiterates its stance against normalizing relations with Israel before a two-state solution has been reached, after US President Donald Trump said earlier that Riyadh has not made the establishment of a Palestinian state a condition for a peace deal with Israel.
A statement from Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry says that the kingdom’s stance in favor of a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital is “firm and unwavering.”
It notes that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated as much in a speech last September, when he said Riyadh would not establish ties with Israel without this main condition met.
The Saudi statement carefully doesn’t mention Trump by name, as Riyadh and other countries around the world try to avoid crossing the US president at the start of his second term.
However, Riyadh does stress that it had already conveyed its position against normalizing ties with Israel before a Palestinian state is established “to the previous US administration and the current administration.”
Non-Saudi officials and analysts alike, though, have long dismissed such statements from Riyadh, insisting that bin Salman is far more flexible on the issue in private and is only seeking the establishment of a “pathway” to Palestinian statehood before normalizing ties with Israel.
However, those same officials and analysts acknowledge that Riyadh has been seeking a much more irreversible pathway since the Gaza war, which has catapulted the Palestinian issue to the top of the international agenda.
Hamas official says terror group ready for talks with Trump administration
Palestinian terror group Hamas is ready to establish contact and hold talks with the administration of US President Donald Trump, Russia’s RIA state news agency cites a senior Hamas official as saying.
“We are ready for contact and talks with the Trump administration,” RIA cites senior Hamas Politburo member Mousa Abu Marzouk as saying.
“In the past, we did not object to contacts with the administration of [former US president Joe] Biden, Trump or any other US administration, and we are open to talks with all international parties.”
It is not clear when RIA interviewed Marzouk, who was visiting Moscow yesterday for talks with the Russian foreign ministry.
Trump has vowed that the US will take over the war-shattered Gaza Strip after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere and develop it economically, a move that would shatter decades of US policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Marzouk tells RIA that talks with the US have become a kind of necessity for Hamas, considering that Washington is a key player in the Middle East.
“That is why we welcomed the talks with the Americans and have no objection to this issue,” he adds.
Netanyahu: Peace with Saudi Arabia is going to happen; probe of Oct. 7 ‘will surprise a lot of people’
In response to questions at his joint press conference with US President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu says he believes that “peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia is not only feasible; it’s going to happen.”
If Trump had had another half-year of his first term, it would already have happened, says the prime minister.
“I’m committed to achieving it. And I know the president is committed to achieving it. And I think the Saudi leadership is interested in achieving it.”
“We’ll give it a good shot,” he says, “and I think we’ll succeed.”
Netanyahu promises to investigate what went wrong surrounding Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught “at the appropriate time.”
He says that the appropriate body to investigate is “an independent commission that will be accepted by the majority of the people” — refusing, as always to date, to endorse a state commission of inquiry.
Israel “needs to find out exactly what happened,” he says. “I’m insisting on it.” And the findings, he says, “will surprise a lot of people.”
Trump pledges to visit Israel, Gaza and Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump says he will visit Israel, Gaza and Saudi Arabia.
He notes that there’s been a lot of “bad leadership in the Middle East” that allowed the last year of tumult to unfold. He doesn’t specify who he is referring to.
In prepared remarks at the beginning of his press conference alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump blasts the policy of his predecessor Joe Biden, while boasting of the “victories” the US and Israel accomplished together during his first term.
He notes that he “ended the last administration’s de facto arms embargo” against Israel.
The Biden administration has repeatedly denied this accusation, saying it only withheld one shipment of 2,000-lb bombs.
Trump pledges to further bolster the US-Israeli partnership and expand the Abraham Accords.
He says he and Netanyahu during their meeting earlier today discussed their joint effort to “ensure Hamas is eliminated.”
Trump insists his plan for Gaza is for the betterment of “everybody in the Middle East.”