Trump gets Israeli support for Gaza peace plan. What’s his strategy to get Hamas to agree?

I'm Brent Goff. It's good to have you with us. We begin at the White House. That is where Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he supports a peace plan proposed by U.S. President Trump to end the war in Gaza between his country and Hamas. It includes the return of all Israeli hostages and an economic development scheme to rebuild the territory. A new government would be made up of Palestinians and international experts. A new government would exclude Hamas. After hosting talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House today, Trump said the war would immediately end if both sides agree to the terms, and he warned Hamas to accept the plan or face elimination by Israel with U.S. backing. Here is the U.S. President and the Israeli Prime Minister earlier at the White House. If accepted by Hamas, this proposal calls for the release of all remaining hostages immediately, but in no case more than 72 hours. So the hostages are coming back, and I'm hearing that Hamas wants to get this done too. Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas, but I hope that we're going to have a deal for peace. And if Hamas rejects the deal, which is always possible, they're the only one left. Everyone else has accepted it, but I have a feeling that we're going to have a positive answer. I believe that today we're taking a critical step towards both ending the war in Gaza and setting the stage for dramatically advancing peace in the Middle East. I support your plan to end the war in Gaza, which achieves our war aims. All right, GW's Benjamin Alvarez Gruber joins me now from Washington. Benjamin, this plan, it says if both sides agree, then the war will end immediately. Is this, is it the breakthrough that we have been waiting for? That's at least what many were wondering in that room in the White House, waiting for both leaders, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump. There were two press releases that were sent out before this press conference. It ended being just a statement by both leaders because there were no questions there. The first one was on this trilateral phone call between the U.S. President, the Israeli Prime Minister, and the Qatari Prime Minister, in which Netanyahu apologized to Al Thani, to the Qatari Prime Minister for that strike in Doha against Hamas leaders. He also said this will not happen again. And we heard that this was actually one of the points that was taken out of these 21 that ended up being 20 points planned by the White House to end the war in Gaza. Several shouted questions at the end. One of them was Is there a deadline for Hamas? Both Trump and Netanyahu signaled that the ball is now in Hamas' court to accept this proposal. But what we heard from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said, I support your plan to end the war in Gaza. He told Trump who was standing right next to him, which achieves our warnings. It will bring back to Israel all our hostages, expand on Hamas' military capabilities and its political will to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel. But there are, of course, many open questions yet, or remaining questions yet, on how exactly this might unfold with these 20 point plans that the White House released, and who will decide when one of those is actually was made possible, one of these points, and who it will be up to determine if these concludes or not, if it will be the Israeli government, or it will be other players who will be involved also in this peace plan by the U.S. President. Benjamin, you were at the White House during the press conference. Did it strike you how unusual it was for President Trump not to accept any questions? That's something that many are also wondering here, what the next step will be, how the Israeli Prime Minister will also be able to sell this outside, sell this back home. We saw huge criticism from the Israeli opposition following his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, saying that he had no clear plan on how to end this war. There were several high-ranking U.S. officials in that room today. He had met them also in New York, where he traveled today to Washington, D.C., for his meeting. It was first a greeting at the west side of the White House, then they had a lunch together, and then this press conference. Many of them that were involved, Jared Kushner, Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, but possibly also many of the key players are wondering how this might look like. There was also a map attached by the White House with new borders, how this should be changed in the course of weeks, but also there is no deadline, neither to Hamas to accept or to reject this proposal. So there are many open questions still remaining to find out what exactly this negotiation between the Israeli Prime Minister and U.S. President Donald Trump was, who met at the White House today. Benjamin Alvarez Gruber with the latest from Washington. Benjamin, as always, thank you. I want to take a look now at some of the key points in President Trump's plan. The plan calls for the war ending immediately, and it calls for Israel to withdraw gradually from the territory. All hostages will be returned within 72 hours of Israel accepting the agreement. It calls for Gaza to be demilitarized, to be terror-free, and it calls for Gaza to commit to peaceful coexistence. A temporary international stabilization force will ensure security while Israel withdraws from the territory. Gaza will be redeveloped under a transitional technocratic committee with international oversight, and humanitarian aid and economic development will be provided immediately. We understand that part of Gaza will become a special economic zone. Joining me here in the studio is our Middle East analyst, Shani Rosanes. She's been following these developments now. And I was going to ask you, what are the main sticking points here? But, I mean, it has to be obvious. Hamas, right? Well, we need to see where they stand. And now, basically, Trump and Netanyahu rolled the ball back into Hamas court, and they need to decide. We've heard from a Hamas official already tonight saying that they are waiting to get officially all the papers, and they will discuss it. But it seems on the surface from their first response, as he says, that this plan is too close to the Israeli position. So they're very much concerned that they are not getting enough of what they want here. And for them, probably the biggest sticking point is the idea of the immediate release of all hostages. Let that end alive within the first 72 hours. For Hamas, this is basically- That's their leverage, isn't it? Correct. And sort of almost insurance policy, as cynical and sad as it is. And they need guarantees cuz they have seen Israel in the previous negotiations, as they put it, not sticking to their part of the bargain. In the sense that Hamas have released hostages as expected, but Israel was not sticking to going through with negotiations to ending the war. The first thing we heard when the announcement was made by President Trump from Hamas, is that Hamas said they were not consulted about this plan at all. I mean, it seems that we're seeing the same missteps here that we've seen before. Yes, but I think what we're seeing is that Trump is building very strongly on the Qatari pressure, also Turkey pressure. These are basically the two last sort of allies that Hamas have, the strongest allies that Hamas have. Also physically, this is where Hamas officials operate and live. Basically, once he brings them in with the bigger coalition of more moderate countries and other Muslim countries from Pakistan and Indonesia, all the way to regional allies, he counts on that pressure to put Hamas basically in a position back to the war, where it's gonna be hard for Hamas to say no. But then at the same time, you're saying, it also gives Hamas now a lot of power in their hands. And Netanyahu is threatening, and Trump says he will back him, that if this doesn't work out, basically if Hamas, it's sort of take it or leave it, this is the last offer if you're not taking it. Then Trump says, I will give Israel the permission to go ahead and basically finish the job. But that raises the question, why has Israel not finished his job so far? Israel has tried for the last two years to get to this point of ending the war and eliminating Hamas through force, not successfully enough, despite the great devastation, destruction, and over 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Netanyahu is learning that his policy of applying pressure has limitations. And what Trump is trying to tell him is, let's move on and try something else, because this has not worked out so far. Yeah, Trump said this evening Netanyahu, quote, understands it's time to reach a peace deal. So what does this deal mean for Netanyahu politically? Well, we're already hearing from Israeli coalition members of Netanyahu that they're very much opposing any of that. There was great rage just as the meeting was going, there were information about Netanyahu apologizing for the Qataris that's already been by Netanyahu's extreme right coalition partners. That was already Israeli capitulation and humiliation. Netanyahu, however, knows that he has the backing of central parties if he wants to complete the deal in order to have it passed through the parliament and get the support of the people. There's no doubt that among a wide Israeli support public, there's great support for this act and for this move. So Netanyahu is torn, and many say that he assumes election year is starting anyway, and maybe coming with the deal will give him some sort of momentum, which will help him maybe win the next election, as he would wish to do. Yeah, he doesn't want to go anywhere, that's for sure. Shani, as always, thank you. You're welcome, Brad.