Jacob Magid and Lazar Berman — Times of Israel July 28, 2026

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House Tuesday for his first in-person talks with US President Donald Trump since the Iran war began in February, and later described their meeting as “excellent” and “one of the best we’ve ever had.” The White House succinctly called the talks productive and positive.

The meeting took place behind closed doors in the Oval Office, with reporters not invited in and without a press conference afterwards.

Netanyahu entered the White House through a side entrance that was only partially visible to reporters, and left without fanfare some 90 minutes later. Held in the Oval Office with the leaders’ respective delegations, it was the eighth meeting between the leaders since Trump’s return to office in early 2025.

The sit-down came amid reported straining of ties between the two leaders, with Trump expressing his annoyance at Netanyahu just before the meeting, and with top US officials reportedly frustrated that none of Netanyahu’s predictions about how well the war would play out have come to fruition, as the conflict continues to fester without a clear end.

However, Netanyahu was quick to temper any suggestions that he and Trump were on bad terms, saying shortly after the meeting: “It was a meeting with full cooperation, with mutual support, with understanding on the joint goal that Iran won’t have nuclear weapons, and also other goals.

“It was one of the best conversations I’ve had with our friend, US President Trump,” Netanyahu insisted, and “an opportunity to exchange ideas, and also to coordinate on things that are important for the security and for the future of Israel.”

Photos released by Netanyahu’s office showed that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, US Vice President JD Vance and Trump’s top Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were all present in the Oval Office.

Trump did not speak to reporters after the meeting, and the White House did not release a readout on the talks. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the talks, along with Trump’s earlier meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, were “positive and productive.”

“Obviously, many important subjects were discussed,” Trump later wrote in a brief Truth Social post that included photos from the meeting with Netanyahu, which he described as “very good meeting.” Trump put out a nearly identical post about his sit-down with Zelensky, saying the “meeting went very well” and “many things were discussed.”

 

After the meeting, both Netanyahu and Trump left the White House to attend the memorial service for the late, pro-Israel Republican senator Lindsey Graham.

Pickaxe mountain, Gaza and Lebanon pullouts, West Bank violence didn’t come up, official says

A senior official in the prime minister’s entourage told The Times of Israel shortly after the sit-down that they “talked about all arenas — primarily Iran.”

However, Netanyahu’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate head Tzipi Hotovely told Israeli reports in a briefing later Tuesday that the issue of Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site did not come up.

Trump, in a Fox News interview shortly before the meeting, had criticized Netanyahu for ostensibly publicly discussing Iranian activity at the site, asserting that the prime minister was doing so “because he wants me to stay involved,” and declaring that “I don’t need Bibi” to know what is unfolding there. Trump threatened, as he has done several times in recent days, to destroy the Pickaxe Mountain site if Iran does not agree to a deal that, among other elements, will ensure unfettered international traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

The president has several times described June’s Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran as over, and repeatedly threatened to launch heavier attacks on the Islamic Republic, but suspended two weeks of daily attacks at the weekend, and has also said this week that there is a good chance of progress in negotiations.

In fact, the prime minister has not spoken about Pickaxe Mountain publicly, but some reports on purported Iranian activity at the nuclear site have been attributed to unnamed Israeli officials, presumed to be close to Netanyahu.

Hotovely, who was not in Tuesday’s meeting but was briefed by the premier, said that the idea that Netanyahu came to the White House to share specific intelligence about Iranian activity at the underground nuclear facility “is a sort of fake news that ran throughout the day.”

“We know how to work in close cooperation with the US intelligence through our channels. We don’t need this meeting to bring intelligence,” Hotovely said.

Hotovely insisted that Netanyahu’s “goal was to deepen coordination, but not to push the president to take one action or another. We do not tell the president of the United States what to do.”

On the Iran threat, “there was a deep understanding in the meeting that we are striving for the same goal,” she said.

Hotovely also claimed that there was no pressure from Trump in the meeting for Israel to move forward with the reconstruction of Gaza, nor was there pressure to withdraw IDF forces from Syria or Lebanon, despite days of reports that the US would push Israel to concede in all those areas.

According to one report, Trump had even refused to meet with Netanyahu until he conceded on at least one arena, with the premier choosing to clear the way for the cabinet to approve a pilot program for the entry of international troops into Gaza.

“There is more or less an understanding of where we are on the Gaza issue,” Hotovely said. “And of course the most important thing to say on the Gaza issue is that reconstruction will not begin before full demilitarization.”

The possibility of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords was discussed, Hotovely added. However, the topic of extremist Jewish violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, which has been taking place almost daily and has sparked ire in Washington, did not come up, she said.

Despite the Israelis trying to put a positive spin on the meeting and to downplay perceptions that Netanyahu was pushing Trump to resume the war and take a harsher line on Iran, Israeli officials said after the talks that there was concern in Israel over which direction the mercurial American president would take now in his dealings with Iran.

“We are in a critical period,” a senior Israeli official told Channel 12 after the Oval Office meeting. “President Trump will make a decision soon where he is heading,” said the official. “We are not pushing him, but also aren’t burying our heads in the sand. Netanyahu presented [Trump with] the Israeli perspective,” including unspecified Israeli intelligence on Iran, said the senior official.

“Netanyahu believes there is no choice” but to attack Iran again, the Channel 12 report continued, apparently still quoting the senior Israeli official. These need to be “significant attacks — on nuclear facilities, capabilities that have been rebuilt, and sites that weren’t previously hit.” Such strikes, Israel believes, would have the potential to “shake the stability of the regime.”

Left-wing Jewish groups protest outside

As was the case during previous Netanyahu visits, a small group of anti-Israel activists staged a demonstration several blocks away from the White House during the meeting, blaring a non-stop siren that, nonetheless, could barely be heard from inside the building.

Outside the White House, a billboard truck commissioned by the Israeli Peace Now settlement watchdog circled the block with a wide banner pointing to the mounting settler violence against the Palestinian in the West Bank and warning Trump not to trust Netanyahu.

 

“Netanyahu, [Bezalel] Smotrich and [Itamar] Ben Gvir are fueling settler violence,” a caption on the picture plastered on the truck read, referring to the far-right ministers, along with a photo from an arson attack by settlers.

Several Jewish organizations, including J Street, New Jewish Narrative and UnXeptable DC, also staged an anti-Netanyahu protest across the street from the White House.

Source