The US president’s close aides reportedly feel that the Israeli prime minister is deliberately stalling the Gaza peace process
Officials in US President Donald Trump’s closest circle no longer believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can be trusted to push forward with the Gaza peace plan, Axios reported on Friday, citing insiders.
The future of Trump’s grand Gaza war settlement roadmap, unveiled in September, hinges on his upcoming meeting with the Israeli leader on Monday, according to the outlet.
Last week, US special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with officials from Egypt, Qatar, and Türkiye to finalize the next step of the plan, which envisions Hamas disarmament and an Israeli pullout from Gaza.
However, Netanyahu has privately expressed skepticism about the roadmap, yet the plan cannot go ahead without his buy-in, Axios said.
“Bibi is trying to convince a one-man audience,” the outlet cited a White House official as saying. “The question is whether Trump will side with him or with his top advisers when it comes to Gaza.”
Key figures in Trump’s team have now lost trust in Netanyahu, fearing he is “slow-walking the peace process” and could resume the war with Hamas after his steps to undermine the fragile ceasefire, according to Axios.
The Israeli PM has “lost” Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and both Kushner and Witkoff, the outlet wrote, citing another US official.
“The only one he has left is the president, who still likes him, but even he wants to see the Gaza deal moving faster than it is right now.”
Trump is expected to press Netanyahu to move on from the Gaza war, as well as raise the issue of Israel’s push into the occupied West Bank, according to Axios.
West Jerusalem officially approved nearly a dozen new controversial Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory earlier this week, drawing international condemnation.
On top of losing trust in the White House, Netanya’s government has taken a beating in the domestic approval polls. Only a quarter of Israeli Jews trust their government, and only 17% of the country’s Arabs, according to an Israel Democracy Institute poll published earlier this week.
