US President Donald Trump has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit him next week, with the visit due on February 4, both Netanyahu and the White House said.
The visit would make Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the first foreign leader to visit Trump since his inauguration last week.
What do we know about the visit?
The White House letter shared by Netanyahu’s office, dated Tuesday, said “I look forward to discussing how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries.”
The meeting comes as a ceasefire deal between Israel and the militant group Hamas in Gaza holds for a second week, coupled with the gradual release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the Hamas October 7 terror attacks, which killed 1,200, with around 250 more taken hostage.
Israel responded with an air and ground offensive that stretched for the next 15 months. Health authorities in the Hamas-controlled Gaza say over 47,000 Palestinians were killed, with women and children making up more than half the toll.
Netanyahu’s visit comes amid preparations to enter the second phase of the ceasefire, which aims to end the war altogether.
Trump this week suggested that Egypt and Jordan should take in the Palestinians in Gaza, at least on a temporary basis, so that “we just clean out that whole thing.”
The statements sent shockwaves in the region, amid fears that Palestinians would be indefinitely displaced again similarly to what happened in 1948, which Arabs call Nakba, or catastrophe.
Cairo, Amman and the Palestinians swiftly rejected the suggestion, but Trump raised it again, suggesting he could make Egypt and Jordan come round.
Palestinians were also allowed this week to return to northern Gaza, the region most badly damaged by the Israeli operations, for the first time since the early weeks of the war.
Over 375,000 Palestinians crossed into northern Gaza since Monday morning, the United Nations said on Tuesday, making up over a third of the million people who fled the region during the early days of the war.
Returnees celebrated and expressed their gratitude in comments to media outlets, despite coming back to mostly rubble where their homes once stood.
Congress tries to sanction ICC
Meanwhile in the US, Congress tried and failed to pass a bill that could have sanctioned the ICC over the arrest warrant issued for the Israeli prime minister and his former defense minister.
The bill, dubbed the “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act,” would have sanctioned any foreigner who investigates, arrests, detains or prosecutes US citizens or those of an allied country, including Israel, who are not members of the court.
The bill had passed in the House of Representatives earlier this month with 243 votes in favor and 140 against. Forty-five Democrats were among those voting in favor.
In the Senate, however, only 54 voted in favor, with 45 voting against, standing short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill. Though the Democrats were in favor of much of the bill, they thought it was overall too broad.
The US is not a state party to the Rome Statute which founded the ICC.
