Netanyahu will meet with Trump in Washington on February 4

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to a meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on February 4, said the premier’s office in a statement on Tuesday.

Earlier, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said Netanyahu would travel “very soon” to Washington to meet with him, but did not say when the meeting would happen.

According to the White House, Trump invited the Israeli Prime Minister to meet at the White House early next week: “Details about the date and time will be released when finished.”

The meeting is scheduled to take place amid a fragile six-week ceasefire that took a temporary break to 15 months of fighting between Israel and the Hamas Militant Group in Gaza.

Trump also said on Monday he wants Egypt to receive Palestinians from Gaza, where much of the population was displaced by Israel’s military response to Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

Trump’s comments were made after he presented, over the weekend, the idea that Egypt and Jordan, which borders Israel and with the southern and east -busy Palestinian territories, should welcome the Palestinians of Gaza because “Almost everything is demolished and people are dying there.”

Jordan is already home to several million Palestinians, and tens of thousands live in Egypt. The two countries opposed the idea over the weekend after Trump said that they should receive Gaza Palestinians, where Israel’s military attack caused a humanitarian crisis and killed tens of thousands of people.

The suggestion was also rejected by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules Gaza, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who exercises a standalone -supported autonomous government and limited to some areas of Israel’s occupied Sommonium.

Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab countries oppose the removal of Gaza Palestinians, in part because they are lands that Palestinians want as part of a future Palestinian state.