The two confronted an array of high-stakes Middle East issues. But first they took a victory lap, including the Israeli leader telling President Trump he had nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.
President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confronted several high-stakes issues when they met for dinner on Monday night, including the long-term future of Gaza and the prospect of Israel normalizing relations with its Persian Gulf neighbors.
But first, they indulged in some self-congratulation.
The two celebrated the U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Mr. Netanyahu used the occasion to further ingratiate himself to the American president by telling Mr. Trump he had nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.
“He’s forging peace, as we speak, in one country in the region after another,” Mr. Netanyahu said, lavishing praise on Mr. Trump, who has long made known his desire for a Nobel Prize.
Mr. Trump, for his part, compared his decision to authorize airstrikes on Iran to President Harry S. Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan during World War II.
“That stopped a lot of fighting, and this stopped a lot of fighting,” he said.
The men spoke to reporters while seated at a long table in the Blue Room, surrounded by top White House aides. The Israeli prime minister plans to stay in Washington through Thursday and has meetings planned with Vice President JD Vance, Speaker Mike Johnson and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary.
He has an array of daunting issues before him during his trip. Mr. Trump has expressed urgency to secure an Israel-Hamas cease-fire and hostage release deal, the subject of talks underway in Qatar.
The discussion agenda also included the recent U.S. airstrikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran, a surgical effort amid a broader Israeli war on the country, as part of a broader conversation about reducing instability in the region, according to two people with knowledge of the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private meeting publicly.
Mr. Netanyahu, who arrived in Washington a little after 1 a.m. Monday, met first with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser, before having dinner with Mr. Trump.
It is Mr. Netanyahu’s third visit to the White House since Mr. Trump took office for a second time in January, a number that surpasses any other foreign leader. The two men are not personally close — and in fact have long harbored mutual suspicion — but have forged a working relationship out of necessity, allies of both say.
Any release of hostages in Gaza would need the agreement of Hamas, which has a new leader after Israel killed several of its top officials.
“The utmost priority for the president right now in the Middle East is to end the war in Gaza and to return all of the hostages,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Monday afternoon. “There was a cease-fire proposal that Israel supports that was sent to Hamas, and we hope that they will agree to this proposal. We want to see all of the hostages released.”
Ms. Leavitt called the cease-fire proposal “agreeable and appropriate.” She added that Mr. Witkoff intended to travel this week to Doha, the capital of Qatar, where he will engage in discussions that include representatives of Qatar and Egypt in trying to negotiate an end to the conflict.
“I think we’re close to a deal on Gaza. Could have it this week,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday, adding, “I think there’s a good chance we have a deal with Hamas during the week.”
Mr. Trump discussed the future of Gaza beyond a short-term cease-fire. In February, during Mr. Netanyahu’s first visit to Washington this year, Mr. Trump made a surprise announcement of his vision that some two million Palestinians be permanently relocated from the Gaza Strip to nearby countries so the United States could take over the territory and develop it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” He later walked back that suggestion.
Arab countries have countered Mr. Trump’s proposal with their own vision, endorsing a plan to keep the population there, rebuild the territory and turn it into part of a future Palestinian state, without Hamas in government.
In response to a question about Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Palestinians be relocated from Gaza, part of a broader proposal that has included essentially razing the territory and turning it into a luxury waterfront development, Mr. Netanyahu of Israel said Mr. Trump had a “brilliant vision.”
The prime minister said Gazans should be able to leave the territory at will. “It’s called free choice,” he said. “You know, if people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s second visit, in early April, came as the prime minister was pressing a case for striking Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Mr. Trump was not interested in having the United States take part as he was trying to negotiate a nuclear containment deal with Iran, but it became clear heading into June that Israel planned to strike with or without U.S. military help.
Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday that his administration was “working on a lot of things,” including what he called “probably a permanent deal with Iran.”
“They have to give up all of the things that you know so well,” he said, adding that U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities resulted in “complete and total obliteration” — an assessment intelligence reports have contradicted — and that Iran would “have to start all over again at a different location.”
The president and Mr. Netanyahu also discussed Israel’s relationship with Syria. Mr. Trump is hoping to expand the Abraham Accords, an agreement that normalized relations between Israel and other countries in the region that his administration negotiated during his first term.
Mr. Trump has signed an executive order aimed at ending decades of U.S. sanctions on Syria, where the fledgling government of the new president, Ahmed al-Shara, is trying to rebuild the country after a 13-year civil war.
Syria and Israel are engaged in “meaningful” talks through the United States that aim to restore calm along their border, according to the United States.
Mr. Netanyahu said on Sunday before his departure that “the opportunity to expand the circle of peace” was “far beyond what we could have imagined before.”
“I think that everyone understands that the situation has changed,” Mr. Netanyahu said on Monday. “Before that, Iran was essentially running Syria, directly through Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been brought to its knees. Iran is out of the picture. So I think this presents opportunities for stability, for security and eventually for peace.”
Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said more intractable problems lay ahead regarding Gaza and Iran.
“The question really is: How much progress can be made on each of these?” Mr. Abrams said.
“I think there can be a Gaza deal here that begins to free more hostages and includes more food getting in,” he said. “The great complication comes in when you try to extend that and make it a long-term, permanent agreement over the future of the West Bank and Palestinian statehood.”
Rachel Brandenburg, the Washington managing director at the Israel Policy Forum, which works toward a negotiated two-state outcome for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu “probably have different expectations of what should come out of” their meeting.
“President Trump would like to secure the terms of a cease-fire and some amount of agreement that Israel doesn’t strike Iran again,” she said, “but Prime Minister Netanyahu probably just wants to take a victory lap and not have to agree on anything that risks his own political standing.”
Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
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