(NewsNation) — On Friday, President Donald Trump told reporters, “We think within the next week we’re going to get a ceasefire” in Gaza — but Israeli strikes have only ramped up since.
The Israeli Defense Forces said it hit 140 sites it called “terrorist targets” in the last 24 hours as it prepares to enter a new phase of “intensified” military operations against Hamas.
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Civilians are being caught in the crossfire, and witnesses say more than 70 people were killed Monday as Israeli forces attacked a café and fired on people seeking food.
“Without a warning, all of a sudden, a warplane hit the place, shaking it like an earthquake,” Ali Abu Ateila, who was inside Al-Baqa Café, told the Associated Press.
President Donald Trump has urged Israel to make a deal alongside the Qatari government.
In an exclusive interview with NewsNation, Majed Al-Ansari, the senior adviser to the Qatari prime minister, said they are working “day and night.”
Netanyahu to visit White House next week
Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C., next week for talks about the war in Gaza and Iran, Netanyahu confirmed during a government speech Tuesday.
“I am due to leave next week for meetings in the U.S. with U.S. President Donald Trump,” Netanyahu said, originally in Hebrew. “These come in the wake of the great victory that we achieved in Operation Rising Lion.”
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Netanyahu’s visit comes after Trump involved the U.S. in the Israel-Iran conflict with strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, then helped broker a ceasefire between the two Middle Eastern countries.
Discussions surrounding the effectiveness of Trump’s strikes on Iran and a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas are likely to take center stage in the meeting.
International pressure to end war in Gaza grows
As Trump prepares to pressure Netanyahu stateside, calls from the international community to end the humanitarian situation inside Gaza are growing louder.
A big concern for the United States is food falling into the hands of Hamas and being used as a means of exerting control over Palestinians in Gaza. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has backing from the U.S. and Israel, has taken the lead on food distribution in the area.
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The foundation’s president, Johnnie Moore, told NewsNation some of the group’s local aid workers have been killed and taken hostage, and claimed Hamas has put bounties on aid workers’ heads.
“We’ve got to get food into the Gaza Strip, and we’ve got to get it in now, so one more time to the international community: let’s work together. The food insecurity is real. It’s a serious situation. It’s an emergency situation,” Moore said. “We’re not a political organization. We have one mission: to show up and keep feeding Gazans. We’re going to keep doing it.”
The international community does not support the foundation — including key U.S. allies like Great Britain and the United Nations. They contend that aid distribution sites have been made too dangerous.
“People are being killed simply trying to feed their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence … Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
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More than 56,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It said more than half of the dead were women and children.
The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war killed approximately 1,200, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. An estimated 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
