Tension is mounting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump's top advisers, with the US team growing "increasingly frustrated" by Netanyahu's attempts to undermine the peace process, Axios reported.
According to the report, the US president's inner circle, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, peace envoy Steve Witkoff, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, has become deeply aggravated, believing Netanyahu is "slow-walking" the agreement and actively taking steps to undermine the ceasefire in Gaza.
An Israeli official said, however, that Rubio is closer to Netanyahu's position than Witkoff and Kushner's.
A White House official indicated that Netanyahu has essentially "lost" the backing of Trump's core team, though the president himself, while wanting the deal to move "faster," remains the only key supporter.
"It's JD, Marco, Jared, Steve, Susie. He has lost them. The only one he has left is the president, who still likes him, but even he wants to see the Gaza deal moving faster than it is right now," the White House official told Axios.
Netanyahu has reportedly expressed specific scepticism regarding the proposals put forward by Witkoff and Kushner, particularly their concepts for the demilitarisation of Gaza, a core component of the multi-phase plan.
Aware of the disagreement with the US staff, Netanyahu's approach for the upcoming Monday meeting in Mar-a-Lago is to appeal directly to Trump, hoping to persuade him to adopt his own, more hawkish, viewpoint, a senior Israeli official told the news outlet.
Ceasefire violations
Phase one of the deal, which came into force on October 10, included the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel has failed to fully meet commitments under the first phase of the agreement, particularly a halt to hostilities, as Israeli forces have continued to launch attacks.
Earlier, Israel killed a Palestinian in Gaza in another violation of the deal, taking the death toll since the ceasefire took place to 412 and 1,118 wounded.
The second phase includes forming a temporary technocratic committee to administer Gaza, launching reconstruction efforts, establishing a peace council, creating an international force, further Israeli troop withdrawals from the territory, and the disarmament of Hamas.
Israel killed over 70,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in its carnage in Gaza since October 2023.
It has reduced most of the blockaded enclave to ruins, and practically displaced all of the population.
The UN estimates the cost of reconstructing Gaza at about $70 billion as a result of the Israeli genocide.
