Trump calls on Arab countries to have formal Israel ties

US president says all of Middle East should join Abraham Accords after Iran nukes obliterated   Saudi, US defence ministers discuss efforts to achieve stability in region  Israel intends to remove Hamas before handing Gaza to Arab forces: Netanyahu   Hamas says Israeli PM aims to sacrifice hostages for personal interests.

WASHINGTON/ RIYADH  –  US President Donald Trump said Thursday that expanding the Abraham Accords, which he brokered during his first presidency in 2020 to normalise ties between Israel and sev-eral Muslim-majority countries, is key to achieving Middle East peace. Efforts to expand the accords are currently complicated by global anger with Israel over the soaring death toll in the Gaza Strip.

Trump said on Thursday it was important that Middle Eastern countries join the Abraham Accords, saying it will ensure peace in the region.

“Now that the nuclear arsenal being ‘created’ by Iran has been totally OBLITERATED, it is very important to me that all Middle Eastern Countries join the Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

As part of the Abraham Accords, signed during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.

Efforts to expand the accords have been complicated by a soaring death toll and starva-tion in Gaza. The war in Gaza, where local authorities say more than 60,000 people have died, has provoked global anger. Canada, France and the United Kingdom have announced plans in recent days to recognise an independent Palestinian state.

Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.

Abraham Accords,” the US president wrote. “This will insure PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

During his first term in 2020, Trump secured a series of deals, known as the Abraham Ac-cords, to establish official diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

But US efforts to expand the agreements – with focus on Saudi Arabia – over the past years have failed. The kingdom’s top officials have repeatedly stressed that Riyadh is committed to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions recognising Israel on estab-lishing a Palestinian state.

The war on Gaza, which Riyadh has decried as a genocide, further complicated the push to normalise relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

But Trump appeared to link Arab-Israeli relations to the Iranian nuclear programme and the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which saw the US military strike Iran’s nuclear sites.

Arab countries had condemned Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which killed top military officials and nuclear scientists as well as hundreds of civilians.

When he visited the Gulf region in May, Trump appeared to de-emphasise Arab-Israeli normalisation. He said it is his “dream” for Saudi Arabia to establish official ties with Israel, but he wants the kingdom to do it on its “own time”.

While the so-called Abraham Accords fostered trade and security ties between the coun-tries involved, they failed to end or mitigate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Minister of Defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, made a phone call on Thursday to U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, Saudi News Agency (SPA) reported.

During the call, the two sides reviewed relations, explored ways to enhance them, and discussed opportunities for further development within the framework of the strategic de-fence partnership.

They also addressed efforts to achieve security and stability in the region and the world, in addition to discussing a number of issues of common interest.

Meanwhile, Israel’s security cabinet is meeting to decide on a full reoccupation of Gaza, a move that would mark a major escalation of the conflict after nearly two years of war in the territory.

Despite international pressure, opposition from the Israeli military and domestic fears the operation will endanger hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed for a complete takeover of the besieged enclave.

In an interview with Fox News shortly before the security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu was asked whether Israel plans to take military control of all of Gaza.

“We intend to,” Netanyahu said. He claimed Israel is aiming to “remove Hamas” in Gaza, before handing the territory to “civilian governance that is not Hamas, and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel.”  According to Israeli media, the PM said that Israel intends to take control of all of Gaza, then hand it to Arab forces.

His comments drew a strong response from Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid. “What Netanyahu is offering is more war, more dead hostages, more ‘now cleared for publication’ notices, and tens of billions of taxpayer shekels poured into the delusions of (Itamar) Ben Gvir and (Bezalel) Smotrich,” Lapid said, referring to Israel’s far-right ministers, who have repeatedly pushed for maximalist goals in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Families of some of the 50 hostages who are still in Gaza organized several protests on Thursday, pleading with the government to drop the plan.

As Israel’s security cabinet discusses the potential full-scale military occupation of the Gaza Strip, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir warns ministers in attendance that “the lives of the hostages will be in danger” if Israel moves forward with such a plan, Channel 12 reports.

“We have no way to guarantee that we won’t harm them [the hostages],” he cautions.

Zamir also voices broader concerns about expanding military operations, warning that it would come at the cost of soldiers’ lives, stretch military resources thin, and lead to severe humanitarian and sanitary challenges.

According to Channel 12, cabinet ministers sharply criticize Zamir’s remarks, claiming that Operation Gideon’s Chariots had failed to meet its stated objectives.

Zamir pushes back, insisting the operation had succeeded in creating the necessary conditions for rescuing the remaining hostages.

Hamas says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remark that Israel intends to take military control of all of Gaza constituted “a coup” amid the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal negotiations. Netanyahu’s plans to expand Israel’s Gaza offensive show he aims to sacrifice Israel’s own hostages to serve his personal interests, Hamas adds in its statement.