Trump administration pushes Netanyahu to prepare for phase two of cease-fire agreement
On press call, a senior Trump official also reiterated that Hamas cannot govern Gaza at the end of the process

Avi Ohayon (GPO) / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes statements at Ben Gurion Airport ahead of his visit to Washington DC, where he will meet with US President Donald Trump in Tel Aviv, Israel on February 02, 2025.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, where the two are slated to discuss “maintaining” the ongoing cease-fire agreements in Gaza and Lebanon.
Netanyahu’s visit, which will mark Trump’s first in-person summit with a foreign leader since retaking office last month, will include a private Oval Office meeting with the president and a dinner between the two leaders, according to a senior Trump administration official. There will also be an “expanded bilateral meeting with senior officials from both countries” on Tuesday.
“Today, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu will discuss maintaining cease-fire deals and share a commitment to freeing all remaining hostages held captive by Hamas terrorists. They’ll also discuss how our two countries can work together to spread peace and stability across the region,” the official told reporters on a Tuesday morning call.
The official added, “Phase two is obviously something that the president and prime minister will discuss today and I think you’ll hear some unity in how they and we intend to pursue that,” when asked about Hamas saying early Tuesday that talks on the second phase of the Gaza cease-fire deal had already begun.
Looming over the talks are the political challenges Netanyahu faces at home over the Gaza deal, which a majority of Israelis support but some far-right members of his fragile governing coalition do not. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, has threatened to withdraw from the coalition and thus topple Netanyahu’s government if Israel does not return to fighting in the Gaza Strip, which the cease-fire and hostage-deal eventually requires. Smotrich has described Israel pulling out of the Philadelphi Corridor near the border with Egypt as a red line for him.
Questioned if Trump wanted Netanyahu to continue with implementing phase two of the Gaza agreement and what message he planned to convey to the prime minister on the subject, another official on the call replied: “The most important thing to President Trump is to get our hostages home, not only in Gaza, but around the world.”
“What guides his decision process and our policymaking process is focused on bringing the American hostages home,” they explained, calling the hostage issue a “high priority” for Trump.
Despite the cease-fire push, the officials noted that the Trump administration remains opposed to Hamas being permitted to govern Gaza after the war.
“National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has said pretty clearly, as has Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio, that Hamas cannot govern Gaza. This is a terrorist organization that is responsible for killing Americans, and is responsible for the most deaths of the Jewish people in any single day since the Holocaust. That is not in any way an organization that we would tolerate ruling Gaza at the end of all of this,” one of the officials said.
“That is a common goal that I would add, that not only Israel and the United States share, but that we share with many of our Arab allies in the region. That is not an outcome that any of us will tolerate,” they added.
The president told reporters from the Oval Office on Monday that he had “no assurances” that the cease-fire in Gaza “will hold.” “I’ve seen people brutalized. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. No, I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold,” Trump said of the conflict.
Speaking to reporters before boarding his flight to the U.S. on Sunday, Netanyahu said that he and his team planned to address what he described as “the critical issues ahead of us: the defeat of Hamas, the return of all our hostages and the challenge posed by the Iranian axis in all its dimensions.”
“The decisions we made during the war, combined with the bravery of our IDF soldiers, have already transformed the Middle East. They have changed it beyond recognition. I believe that through dedicated work with President Trump, we can reshape it even further for the better,” he continued.