The meeting comes as talks on second phase of truce are due, with US president saying there are no guarantees that peace will hold.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet United States President Donald Trump with the agenda to focus on the paused war in Gaza, as well as Iran.

The two leaders are due to meet in the early afternoon on Tuesday, sources told news agencies. The meeting takes place as indirect negotiations between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas on the second phase of the fragile Gaza ceasefire agreement are due.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump said that discussions with Israel and other countries on the Middle East were “progressing” but offered no details.

The US leader admitted, however, that the ceasefire is uncertain. “I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold,” he told reporters.

His Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who met with the Israeli leader on Monday, added: “We’re certainly hopeful.”

Netanyahu’s office announced on Tuesday that an Israeli negotiating team is preparing to travel to Qatar this weekend for talks on the second phase. The team will discuss “technical details related to continuing to carry out” the agreement, it said in a statement.

Pressure

Trump has claimed credit for the ceasefire deal, which was signed before he took office on January 20.

During the first phase, Hamas released 18 captives; Israel has halted its onslaught on the enclave and released hundreds of jailed Palestinians.

But the situation remains tense. Netanyahu is being pushed by far-right partners in the Israeli government to resume fighting.

Meanwhile, he is likely to face pressure from Trump to hold fire. While the US president is a staunch supporter of Israel, the ceasefire deal is also part of a wider regional strategy.

Trump and Netanyahu have both said they aim to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and to pull the latter into new regional arrangements to help create a bulwark against Iran.

However, the steadfast opposition of Netanyahu – who said on the eve of the trip that he hopes the meeting will help further redraw the map of the region – to any move towards a Palestinian state is a potential obstacle.

The Saudis have said they would only agree to take part if the war in Gaza ends and there is a credible pathway to a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.

Trump has already shown an increase in support for Israel, restarting supplies of 2,000-pound bombs and suggesting Palestinians should be moved from Gaza to neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Jordan. But Iran will be high on his agenda.

During his first term, Trump led a hardball approach to Tehran, pulling an international nuclear deal.

Trump may “have little patience for political woes of Netanyahu if it gets in the way of the broader goals of this administration,” Mira Resnick, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs told the AP news agency.

“The president started his term by saying that he wanted the ceasefire to be in place by January 20. That’s what he got,” Resnick said. “He is invested in this because he was able to take credit for it.”

Source

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Al Jazeera and news agencies