Trump national security adviser to meet with Israel's minister of strategic affairs

US President-elect Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, will meet with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer today, according to a source familiar with the matter, Reuters has reported.

Waltz and Dermer are expected to discuss the efforts to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal and the Iranian threat, a reporter for Axios, which earlier reported the meeting, said on social media. The meeting comes just weeks before Trump takes office on 20 January following campaign promises to end the wars in the Middle East and elsewhere, although he has offered scant details of how he plans to proceed.

On Monday, Trump vowed that there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip were not released prior to his inauguration. “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Israel has been carrying out a “plausible” genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the 7 October 2023 cross-border incursion by Hamas, during which 1,200 people were killed, many of them by the Israel Defence Forces. Around 250 people were taken hostage by the resistance group. Around half of the 101 foreign and Israeli hostages still held in Gaza are believed to be still alive, the others having been killed by Israeli bombing.

At least 44,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since October last year, mainly children and women, and a further 106,000 have been wounded. A further 11,000 are missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes and other civilian infrastructure destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces.

Hamas has called for an end to the war and for a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal to release the remaining hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the war will go on until Hamas is eradicated and poses no threat to Israel.

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant last month for Netanyahu’s arrest on war crimes charges and crimes against humanity. His former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant faces the same charges.

READ: War crimes complaint filed against Israel’s military attaché in Belgium