Benjamin Netanyahu revealed he has nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize as the two leaders met for talks at the White House.
During the meeting, Israel’s prime minister gave the US President a letter that he said he had used to nominate him for the annual prize.
“Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful,” Trump said.
Mr Netanyahu said Trump was “forging peace as we speak, and one country and one region after the other”.
It was Trump’s third face-to-face encounter with Mr Netanyahu since returning to office in January, and came just over two weeks after the president ordered the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites in support of Israeli air strikes. Trump then helped arrange a ceasefire in the 12-day Israel-Iran war.
Trump said his administration would be meeting with Iran. “We have scheduled Iran talks, and they ... want to talk. They took a big drubbing,” he said.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said the meeting would take place in the next week or so.
The US President said he would like to lift sanctions on Iran at some point. “I would love to be able to, at the right time, take those sanctions off,” he said.
Trump and Netanyahu met for several hours in Washington while Israeli officials continued indirect negotiations with Hamas aimed at securing a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal.
The US President said he thought talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza have been “going along very well”.
He expressed confidence that Hamas was willing to end the 21-month conflict. “They want to meet and they want to have that ceasefire,” he said to reporters.
Mr Netanyahu said the United States and Israel were working with other countries who would give Palestinians a “better future,” suggesting that the residents of Gaza could move to neighbouring nations.
“If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave,” Mr Netanyahu said.
“We’re working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realise what they always say, that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future. I think we’re getting close to finding several countries.”
Trump, who initially demurred to Netanyahu when asked about the relocating of Palestinians, said the countries around Israel were helping out. “We’ve had great cooperation from ... surrounding countries, great cooperation from every single one of them. So something good will happen,” Trump said.
The president earlier this year floated relocating Palestinians and taking over the Gaza Strip to turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Gazans criticised the proposal and vowed never to leave their homes in the coastal enclave. Human rights groups condemned the plan as ethnic cleansing.
Outside the White House, hundreds of protesters, many wearing Palestinian keffiyeh scarves and waving Palestinian flags, gathered near the White House, waving banners that read “Stop Arming Israel” and “Say No to Genocide”. They also called for Netanyahu’s arrest, referring to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli leader over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
