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Pete Hegseth Meets Benjamin Netanyahu During Unannounced Visit to Israel
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met Prime Minister Netanyahu during an unannounced visit to Israel. The meeting occurred eight days before Israel's Knesset elections.
Secret Hegseth-Netanyahu Meeting
United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an unannounced visit to Israel, according to Axios as cited by Al Jazeera.
A U.S. Department of Defense spokesman told Al Jazeera it “declines to comment” on the report.
Hegseth posted that he visited US service members in the Central Command area of responsibility, and he said it was “an honor to visit today our fighters at CENTCOM.”
Axios sources placed the meeting at Ovda Air Base in southern Israel, where the United States maintains refueling aircraft and fighters deployed, and Al Jazeera said Israel’s Army Radio reported the meeting took place at an air force base in Israel’s southern desert.
Trump Endorsement, Vance Refusal
President Donald Trump endorsed Netanyahu on social media the day before the reported meeting, and Trump wrote “BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”
Trump praised Netanyahu as an ally of the US in its war on Iran and added that Netanyahu had his “Complete and Total Endorsement”.
US Vice President JD Vance declined to endorse Netanyahu, and Vance told digital media outlet 2WAY, “I’m not getting involved in Israeli elections.”
CBS News reported that Netanyahu told Israeli media last week he was not planning to launch renewed strikes against Iran before the Oct. 27 elections, saying, “it is not convenient for us.”
Elections and Security Stakes
Israeli Police and Shin Bet detained two suspects for planning a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians during a special operation on Route 1 near the Latrun crossing, and the agencies said the operation left no injuries among security forces. The Israeli Police and Shin Bet said officers located the two suspects near the Latrun crossing and proceeded to detain them, and the agencies described the operation as carried out “based on precise intelligence information.”
Axios reporting as cited by Al Jazeera placed the Hegseth-Netanyahu meeting in the context of Israel’s “knife-edge election,” and Al Jazeera said the meeting occurred on Monday. Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition was projected to lose its governing majority, while the opposition may also struggle to form a government, and the reports of the visit came as the veteran premier faced “a knife-edge election.”