Trump calls for Gaza deal, slams Netanyahu trial : NPR
People participate in a demonstration demanding the end of the war and the immediate release of the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday, June 28, 2025.
Ariel Schalit / AP
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Ariel Schalit / AP
Like Aviv, Israel-US President Donald Trump pleaded on Sunday for progress in cease-fire talks in the war in Gaza, calling for an agreement that would stop fighting in the 20-month conflict while the parties seemed to get closer to an agreement.
An Israeli official said that plans were made for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to Washington, DC, in the coming weeks, a sign that there could be a movement on a new agreement. The official refused to discuss the objective of the visit and maintained anonymously to discuss the plans that had not yet been finalized.
“Agree in Gaza. Get the hostages back !!!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social early Sunday between the articles on a vote in the Senate on his bill on tax and expenses.
Trump increased expectations on Friday for an agreement, saying that there may be a cease-fire agreement over the next week. Taking questions to journalists, he said: “We are working on Gaza and try to take care of it.”
Trump has repeatedly called on Israel and Hamas to end the war in Gaza. Despite an eight-week ceasefire reached when Trump took up his duties earlier this year, attempts since then to bring the parties to a new agreement failed.
A superior advisor to Netanyahu, Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, was to go to Washington this week for talks on a ceasefire.
Trump Post Slams Netanyahu Corruption Trial
Gaza’s message was not the only position linked to the Middle East by Trump. On Saturday evening, he doubled his criticisms of the legal proceedings against Netanyahu, who is tried for an alleged corruption, calling him “a political witch hunt, very similar to the witch hunt that I was forced to support”.
Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip mourned their death at the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Saturday June 28, 2025.
Jehad Alshrafi / AP
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Jehad Alshrafi / AP
In the post we socially, he declared that the trial was interfered with talks on a cease-fire in Gaza.
“(Netanyahu) is currently negotiating an agreement with Hamas, which will understand the restoration of hostages. How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a courtroom all day, on nothing,” wrote Trump.
The position echoes similar comments that Trump made last week when he called for the cancellation of the trial. It was a dramatic interference of an international ally in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. And that has annoyed a lot in Israel, despite the popularity of Trump in the country.
Israeli soldiers command new evacuations in northern Gaza
The Israeli army ordered a massive evacuation of the Palestinians on Sunday in large bands of Northern Gaza, an early target of the war which was seriously damaged by several combat cycles.
Colonel Avichay Adraee, military spokesperson, published the order on social networks. It includes several districts in the east and the north of the city of Gaza, as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp.
The army will extend its growing attacks to the northern section of the city, calling on people to move south in the Muwasi region in southern Gaza, said Adraee.
The Palestinians dig in the sand in search of personal effects after an Israeli strike struck a travel camp in Gaza City on Saturday, June 28, 2025.
Jehad Alshrafi / AP
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Jehad Alshrafi / AP
After being almost emptied earlier in the war, hundreds of thousands of people are in the north of Gaza after their return during a ceasefire earlier this year.
An ongoing Israeli military offensive is currently aimed at moving the Palestinians in southern Gaza so that the forces can operate more freely to combat activists. Rights defense groups claim that their movement would be equivalent to a forced transfer.
A point of snack on the end of the war
The war in Gaza began with October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas in which activists killed 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages, of which around fifty remain captive with less than half that would be alive.
Israel’s reprisal response has killed more than 56,000 people, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between activists and civilians in their count but say that more than half of the dead are women and children.
The war sparked a humanitarian disaster, displaced most of the population of Gaza, often several times, and erased a large part of the urban landscape of the territory.
The talks between Israel and Hamas have failed several times on a major collage point, if the war should end in the context of any cease-fire agreement.
Hamas says it is ready to release all hostages in exchange for a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops and the end of the war. Israel rejects this offer, saying that he will agree to end the war if Hamas disarms and comes into exile, which the group refuses.
