Donald Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing from the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. Shortly afterward, he issued a memorandum on Iran, saying Tehran was “too close” to a nuclear weapon.
Wednesday 5 February 2025 00:11, UK
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Benjamin Netanyahu says both he and Donald Trump are aligned in their thoughts on Iran.
“That’s the same Iran that tried to kill us both,” says the Israeli leader.
“They tried to kill you, Mr President. They tried through their proxy to kill me.
“We’re both committed to rolling back Iran’s aggression in the region and ensuring that Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.”
Benjamin Netanyahu now speaks, beginning with some words of praise for his US counterpart.
“I’m honoured that you invited me to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House in your second term,” he says.
“This is a testament to your friendship and support for the Jewish state and the Jewish people.
“I’ve said this before. I’ll say it again. You are the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.
“That’s why the people of Israel have such enormous respect for you in your first term.”
Netanyahu lists some things Trump has done to earn Israeli respect, including recognising its sovereignty over the Golan Heights and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.
Donald Trump now moves onto the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, where he repeats some of his earlier statements about wanting to permanently relocate them.
He says Gaza “has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades” and it should not go through a process of occupation by people “who lived a miserable existence there”.
“Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly, bad luck.”
Trump says the US “will take over the Gaza Strip” and “we will do a job with it”.
“We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexplored bombs and other weapons on the site.”
‘Level the site’
Trump says he wants to “level” Gaza and “get rid of the destroyed buildings”.
After this, he suggests creating “an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area”.
It’s unclear who he believes should fill this space.
Donald Trump says he believes more countries will sign up to the Abraham Accords he signed during his first term as president.
The Accords are bilateral agreements on Arab-Israeli normalisations signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and between Israel and Bahrain, in 2020.
“I really believe that many countries will soon be joining this amazing peace and economic development transaction,” says Trump.
“It really is a big economic development transaction. I think we’re going to have a lot of people signing up very quickly.
“Unfortunately, for four years, nobody signed up. Nobody did anything for four years.”
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have now arrived for their news conference in the White House.
Trump begins by saying he had “fantastic talks” with Netanyahu.
He says the alliance between the US and Israel will soon be “stronger than ever”.
“We had a great relationship,” says Trump.
“We had great victories together four years ago, not so many victories over the past four years.
“However, in my first term, Prime Minister [Netanyahu] and I forged a tremendously successful partnership that brought peace and stability to the Middle East like it hadn’t seen in decades.”
Away from the White House, members of Mexico’s National Guard are heading to the US border as part of a deal agreed between Claudia Sheinbaum and Donald Trump.
Mexico’s president got Trump to pause the implementation of 25% tariffs on her country yesterday after agreements were reached on border security.
Sheinbaum said she was sending 10,000 soldiers to the US border immediately in return for a 30-day delay to tariffs.
Trump said the Mexican soldiers would be “specifically designated” to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US, as well as illegal migrants.
We’re expecting to hear from Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu shortly for a formal news conference.
The Israeli prime minister has been given the honour of being the first foreign leader to visit Trump following his second inauguration.
After Netanyahu’s visit, Trump is expected to host a string of other world leaders in the next week.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is due to visit the White House on Friday, followed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will visit sometime next week, according to a senior administration official.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II is set to visit next Tuesday.
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to give a joint news conference shortly.
It comes after the pair met today in the White House.
You can watch the news conference on YouTube below or in the livestream at the top of this page.
We’ll also be bringing you all the biggest news via text updates in the blog.
President Trump has a habit of saying the quiet stuff out loud.
And the proud global disrupter did just that today with his breathtaking announcement that all Palestinians in Gaza should be permanently resettled somewhere else.
Critics will say he is either ignoring history, is indifferent to it or is ignorant of it.
On the face of it, he is framing his announcement as ‘common sense’.
Why, he asks, would they want to live there. After all it has been totally destroyed. It is a ‘demolition site’ as he says.
Someone (he hasn’t said who) will rebuild them a ‘beautiful’ place somewhere else (he hasn’t said where). And when asked ‘what if they don’t want to leave their homeland’, he repeats the argument – why would they want to live there? To which the answer is: history.
The echoes of history are so stark. Many of the Palestinians only live in that tiny strip of land wedged between the desert and the sea because they were cornered there in decades gone by.
They are refugees in their own land. And many many more are refugees in neighbouring lands – pushed out in what Palestinians call the Nakba – the ‘catastrophe’ – that was their displacement in the creation of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948.
If President Trump is to be taken at face value then he is set to repeat history.
It would end the prospect of a two-state solution – Israelis and Palestinians living side by side on the same land.
It could also wreck any prospects of diplomatic normalization between Israel and Gulf Arab states. Nations like Saudi Arabia wouldn’t stand for such a permanent resettlement and probably wouldn’t trust any resettlement presented as ‘temporary’ – which this is conspicuously not.
The two countries being told to take the people of Gaza – Egypt and Jordan – have firmly refused to do so. The American President seems convinced they will roll over.
Maybe though this is part of Trump’s art of the deal: to suggest something, then not follow through – and present that as a concession down the line.
There’s something else too. Even if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes it’s a plan that can’t work and could further the cries of ethnic cleansing (it’s notable that he didn’t add his overt support to it alongside Trump) the president’s plan will certainly help him domestically where his future is fragile.
Netanyahu can dangle ‘permanent relocation’ in front of the real hardliners in his government who keep him in power.
Whatever is at play here, the announcement today will horrify Palestinians and it will delight and embolden the hardline elements of Israeli society who have dreamt of a Jewish state free of Palestinians.
Whilst all the cameras and attention are fixed on Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, there are plenty of people making their feelings known about their meeting outside the White House and back in Israel.
The images below show demonstrations in Washington and Tel Aviv, with the gathering in the US capital featuring an unflattering effigy of Netanyahu.
In Israel, people are holding signs calling on Trump to secure the rest of the hostages in Gaza, telling him to: “Seal the big deal”.
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