RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump’s four-day go to to the Center East was marked by a flurry of exercise: Billion-dollar commerce offers, a gathering with Syria’s new president and diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran.
However the destiny of Palestinian folks and the battle in Gaza, the place the useless are piling up in current days underneath an Israeli onslaught, seems to have acquired brief shrift.
Trump completed his go to to the Persian Gulf on Friday, touting his skills as a deal maker whereas he solid commerce agreements price lots of of billions of {dollars} — his administration says trillions — from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
However regardless of his repeated insistence that solely he may carry a peaceable finish to the world’s intractable issues — and saying Friday that “we’ve got to assist” Palestinians — there have been no breakthroughs on the Israel-Hamas battle, and the president repeated his suggestion of U.S. involvement within the Gaza Strip.
Noting the widespread destruction within the territory, Trump stated, “I’ve ideas for Gaza that I believe are superb — make it a freedom zone. Let the USA get entangled and make it only a freedom zone.”
President Trump walks down the steps of Air Drive One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Friday.
(Luis M. Alvarez / Related Press)
1. Palestinians wrestle to get donated meals at a neighborhood kitchen in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Might 15, 2025. (Jehad Alshrafi / Related Press) 2. Islam Hajjaj holds her 6-year-old daughter Najwa, who suffers from malnutrition, at a shelter in central Gaza Metropolis, on Might 11, 2025. Amnesty Worldwide accuses Israel on April 29 of committing a ‘’live-streamed genocide’’ towards Palestinians by forcibly displacing Gazans and making a humanitarian disaster within the besieged territory, claims Israel dismisses as ‘’blatant lies’’. (Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto by way of Getty Pictures)
Trump’s feedback Friday got here because the Israel army started the primary levels of a floor offensive it known as “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” — an obvious achievement of a menace by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month that he would launch an assault on Gaza to destroy Hamas and liberate detainees if there wasn’t a ceasefire or a hostage deal by the point Trump completed his time within the Center East.
Trump’s issues “are offers that profit the U.S. financial system and improve the U.S.’ international financial positions,” or stopping pricey army entanglements in Iran or Yemen, stated Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident fellow on the Heart for Battle and Humanitarian Research, based mostly in Qatar.
“In contrast to Syria or Iran,” Rabbani stated, “ending the Gaza battle supplies no financial profit to the U.S., and doesn’t danger American troops getting concerned in a brand new battle.”
Forward of Trump’s four-day journey, there have been strikes that had buoyed hopes of a ceasefire or permitting humanitarian support into Gaza, which Israel has blocked for greater than two months as support teams warn of impending famine. On Might 12, Hamas launched Edan Alexander, a soldier with Israeli and U.S. citizenship and the final American detainee in its palms, as a goodwill gesture to Trump, and there have been rumors of a gathering between Trump and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
However that assembly by no means happened, and as an alternative of a ceasefire, Israel launched strikes that well being authorities within the enclave say have killed no less than 250 folks in the previous few days, 45 of them kids, in response to UNICEF.
A person seems at burned automobiles within the Barkan Industrial space, close to Salfit within the occupied West Financial institution, on Friday, after greater than 17 Palestinian employees’ vehicles had been reportedly set on hearth by Israeli settlers the night time earlier than. Because the begin of the Gaza battle in October 2023, violence has soared within the West Financial institution the place Israeli settlements are unlawful underneath worldwide regulation.
(John Wessels / AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
Netanyahu insists his purpose is to destroy Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing round 1,200 folks and seizing roughly 250 hostages. Israel’s army marketing campaign has thus far killed no less than 53,000 folks in Gaza — together with combatants and civilians, however largely ladies and youngsters, in response to well being authorities there — and plenty of consider that toll to be an undercount.
A ceasefire that Trump’s incoming administration brokered in January broke down in mid-March after Israel refused to proceed second-stage negotiations.
“We count on the U.S. administration to exert additional strain on Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities to open the crossings and permit the speedy entry of humanitarian support, meals, medication and gas to hospitals within the Gaza Strip,” stated Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media advisor, in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Friday.
He added that such strikes had been a part of the understandings reached with U.S. envoys through the newest conferences, underneath which Hamas launched Alexander.
But there was little signal of that strain, regardless of fears in Israeli circles that Trump’s actions earlier than and through his Center East journey — which skipped Israel, noticed Trump dealer a take care of Yemen’s Houthis and raise sanctions on Syria with out Israeli enter — was a snub to Netanyahu.
President Trump speaks on Air Drive One at Abu Dhabi Worldwide Airport earlier than departing on Friday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
(Alex Brandon / Related Press)
Talking to reporters on Air Drive One as he left the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, on Friday, Trump sidestepped questions in regards to the renewed Israeli offensive, saying, “I believe quite a lot of good issues are going to occur over the subsequent month, and we’re going to see.”
“We have now to assist additionally out the Palestinians,” he stated. “, lots of people are ravenous in Gaza, so we’ve got to have a look at either side.”
On the primary day of Trump’s Mideast journey, in Saudi Arabia, he introduced that the U.S. was ending sanctions on Syria, now headed by an Islamist authorities that overthrew longtime dictator Bashar Assad in December. He met Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and praised him as a “powerful man” and a “fighter.”
Israel views Al-Sharaa’s authorities as a menace and has made incursions into its territory since Assad’s fall, and launched a withering airstrike marketing campaign to defang the fledgling authorities’s forces.
When requested whether or not he knew Israel opposed the lifting of sanctions, Trump stated, “I don’t know, I didn’t ask them about that.”
Palestinians wrestle to get donated meals at a neighborhood kitchen in Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, on Friday.
(Abdel Kareem Hana / Related Press)
Commentators say that though Washington’s leverage over Israel ought to make a Gaza ceasefire simpler for a Trump administration searching for to undertaking itself as an efficient peacemaker, the battle there stays a low precedence for Trump.
“Gaza might appear to be low hanging fruit on the floor, nevertheless it’s additionally low political yield — how does appearing decisively on Gaza profit Trump? It doesn’t,” stated Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown College’s Heart for Modern Arab Research.
He added that going together with Netanyahu could be extra in step with Trump’s imaginative and prescient for proudly owning and remaking Gaza, whereas on Iran, Syria and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, it is smart to separate U.S. pursuits from Israel’s.
“Palestinians don’t have anything to supply Trump. And the Gulf states provided their investments at no cost, with no circumstances on Gaza. Gaza is an ethical crucial, not a strategic one, and Trump will not be recognized for appearing on ethical grounds.”
