Netanyahu planning White House visit Monday

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning a Monday visit, a White House official confirmed to The Washington Times.

This meeting will be the second for Mr. Netanyahu to the White House. He had previously visited in February to discuss the Israel-Gaza war. During their meeting, Mr. Trump announced his plan to take over the Gaza Strip and have other countries take in Palestinian refugees.

Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One Thursday that he spoke with Mr. Netanyahu and he would be visiting in the “not too distant future.”

Israel has not been spared from Mr. Trump’s retaliatory tariffs that he announced Wednesday. Israel now faces a 17% retaliatory tariff.

The two leaders are also expected to discuss the Israel-Gaza war as Israel moves to set up new security measures across Gaza to put pressure on Hamas. There are still roughly 50 hostages being held in Gaza, with Israel believing over half of them are dead.

Israel has promised to ramp up its attacks until Hamas returns the remaining hostages and leaves the area.

Hamas has said it will release the hostages in exchange for hostages held in Israel to also be released and for Israeli soldiers to be pulled from Gaza.

“We’ll be speaking about what’s going on, that’s another thing we’d like to get solved,” Mr. Trump told reporters Thursday.

This article is based in part on wire service reports.