By Our Correspondent
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the former president’s Florida resort on Friday, a day after Netanyahu sat down with Biden and Harris in separate meetings in Washington.
Trump greeted Netanyahu warmly and told reporters they have a “very good relationship,” dismissing any suggestion of tensions between them.
Harris struck a more forceful tone than Biden in her public remarks on Thursday, pushing Netanyahu to help reach a ceasefire in Gaza. In a televised statement after their talks, Harris said, “It is time for this war to end,” and expressed concern about the conflict’s toll on Palestinian civilians.
Trump called her remarks “disrespectful” on Friday.
The conflict began on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed more than 39,000, according to Gazan health authorities, and leveled much of the enclave. The response has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and created a humanitarian crisis.
The Biden administration has drawn criticism from some Democrats for not pressing Netanyahu more to protect Palestinian civilians.
Trump has also called for a swift end to the war, telling Fox News on Thursday that Israel was getting “decimated with this publicity.”
Netanyahu said Israel would be dispatching a negotiating team to discuss a proposal for a Gaza ceasefire in Rome “probably at the beginning of the week”, according to pool reporters.
He said he thought there had been movement in efforts to forge a ceasefire because of Israeli military pressure.
Trump dismissed any suggestion of tensions with Netanyahu, saying the pair had “always had a very good relationship”.
Long seen as adept at navigating shifting US political winds, Netanyahu’s final US stop on the trip has widely been viewed as an effort to mend ties with Trump before the November 5 election.
Trump, whose term as president stretched from January 2017 to January 2021, took a permissive and transactional approach to US-Israel ties that empowered Netanyahu’s government while largely sidelining Palestinian interests.
But Netanyahu’s acceptance of Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election while Trump claimed fraud saw the relationship sour.
“F*** him,” Trump said of Netanyahu in an interview at the time.
“I still like Bibi,” he added. “But I also like loyalty.”
Before Friday’s meeting, officials told Israeli media that Netanyahu’s had already begun his charm offensive, calling Trump for the first time in years this month.
During his speech to Congress, Netanyahu took particular time to highlight several of Trump’s actions while in office, including mediating the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel establish ties with several Arab countries, as well as Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognise Israel’s claim to the Syrian-occupied Golan Heights.
Trump later thanked the Israeli leader during an interview on Fox News.
