WASHINGTON, December 30. /TASS/. During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump urged him to refrain from provocative measures in the West Bank and to revise his policy in the area, Axios reported, citing sources.
According to them, during talks at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence near West Palm Beach, Florida, the US president and his aides "expressed concern about the situation in the West Bank and asked Netanyahu to avoid provocative steps and ‘calm things down.’" Trump and his team also "raised settler violence against Palestinian civilians, the financial instability of the Palestinian Authority, and Israeli settlements expansion."
"The US message was that changing course in the West Bank is critical to repair Israel's relations with European countries and, hopefully, expand the Abraham Accords," the website said. An unnamed US administration official quoted by Axios added that an "escalation in the West Bank would undermine efforts to implement the Gaza peace agreement."
Gaza and Israeli settlements
The Gaza Strip came under Israeli control following the Six-Day War in 1967, after which Israel began building settlements there. In 2005, under a unilateral disengagement plan, Israel fully withdrew its troops from the enclave and evacuated all Jewish settlements and their residents — 21 localities and about 9,200 people.
Settlement construction has continued in the West Bank, which is widely regarded as one of the main obstacles to resolving the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In December 2016, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, demanding that Israel immediately cease settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel later declined to comply with the resolution.
On October 7, 2023, militants from the radical Palestinian movement Hamas attacked Israeli border communities, killing residents of nearby settlements and taking more than 200 hostages. The group described the attack as a response to Israeli actions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. In response, Israel launched a large-scale military operation in Gaza, stating that its objective was the complete elimination of Hamas’ military and administrative capabilities.
Hostilities were suspended in October, when a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar, came into force.
Commenting on post-war prospects for the enclave, Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected the idea of resuming Jewish settlement construction in Gaza. However, some members of his Likud party, as well as coalition partners from the far-right Religious Zionist and Otzma Yehudit parties, have advocated for a rapid resumption of settlement activity in the territory.