Netanyahu Makes Surprise Mar-a-Lago Visit for Gaza Truce Talks with Trump

PALM BEACH, Florida — In the hush of a humid Florida evening, two men who once shaped—and still crave to shape—the Middle East sat down beneath the chandeliers of Mar-a-Lago.

A meeting cloaked in secrecy

Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for 2024, greeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after sunset Friday. No press pool. No live tweets. Just the low hum of a string quartet in the anteroom and the rustle of aides clutching briefing folders stamped "CONFIDENTIAL."

"The goal was simple: cut through the noise and see if there’s a pathway to quiet in Gaza without handing Hamas a victory," one U.S. official told The Ledger on condition of anonymity.

What’s on the table

• A phased cease-fire that would pause Israeli airstrikes in exchange for daily humanitarian convoys into northern Gaza.
• Release of the last 30 Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
• A temporary U.S.-monitored security corridor along the Philadelphi Route, the narrow strip between Gaza and Egypt.

"Netanyahu needs a win that looks like security; Trump wants a headline that looks like peace," said a former State Department negotiator. "Both men understand the currency of perception."

The back-channel dance

Trump has no formal portfolio, but his polling lead among GOP voters gives him king-maker status inside the party—and a direct line to key senators who could bless or block any future arms deal for Israel. Netanyahu, facing corruption charges and weekly protests back home, is betting that a Trump imprimatur will stiffen spines in both Washington and Jerusalem.

According to three people briefed on the conversation, the former president pressed Netanyahu on two points:

1. Whether Israel can accept a limited role for Qatar in mediating the truce.
2. How long Jerusalem would tolerate a U.S. observer mission on its side of the Gaza fence.

Netanyahu reportedly answered with a question of his own: "Will America still have our back the day after a deal is signed?"

What happens next

Within 48 hours, Trump aides say, the ex-president will dispatch a two-person team—retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg and former ambassador David Friedman—to Tel Aviv and then to Cairo. Their mission: translate the Mar-a-Lago talking points into a paper agreement before Ramadan begins next week.

White House officials, caught off guard by the meeting, insisted President Biden’s envoys remain "fully engaged" with Egypt and Qatar. But privately, some Democrats worry the optics of a rival peace push could undercut the administration’s own fragile negotiations.

For now, Gaza’s 2.3 million residents—half of them children—wait under patched roofs and rationed bread, hostages to a diplomacy that sometimes seems as distant as the Florida sunset.

As one Gaza father told The Ledger by voice note: "We don’t care who signs the paper. We care that the bombs stop before our food runs out."