Newsletters
President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call last Thursday that Israel should begin withdrawing its military from Syria, and pressed him to take similar steps in Lebanon, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.
The disclosure, reported by Axios, marks a direct and unusually candid rebuke from Washington to its closest Middle East ally and adds to mounting pressure on a prime minister facing a high-stakes domestic election.
According to a U.S. official familiar with the exchange, Trump was blunt: "They don't want you there. You should redeploy." The same message, the official said, applied to Lebanon. The White House declined to comment but did not dispute the account.
Netanyahu's office offered a more measured characterization of the call, saying the prime minister "raised the need for security zones along Israel's borders."
A U.S. official, meanwhile, stressed that Trump "has a strong relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu" and called the president "a fighter for peace."
With Israeli elections roughly three months away, and Netanyahu's political survival and personal legal fate both on the line, any significant withdrawal from Syrian or Lebanese territory is considered unlikely in the near term.
Senior figures in the Israeli government have pushed not merely to maintain the military presence in those areas but to establish Jewish settlements there, a position that has complicated negotiations with Washington.
The Israeli military currently hold large portions of southern Lebanon and southern Syria. Israeli officials maintain that this presence is essential to prevent a repeat of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, which killed approximately 1,200 people and triggered a war that reshaped the region. That attack remains the central reference point in Israeli security doctrine.
The phone call came one day after Trump met with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Türkiye, a meeting that underscored Washington's deepening engagement with Damascus since the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's government in December 2024.
The Trump administration had spent months attempting to broker a new security arrangement between Israel and Syria, one that would have included a gradual The Israeli military withdrawal from Syrian territory. Those efforts ultimately stalled, with U.S. officials concluding that Netanyahu was unwilling to make the concessions required.
Tensions on the ground have also risen. In recent weeks, Syrian residents in southern Syria have staged protests against the The Israeli military presence, with some demonstrations escalating into clashes with Israeli soldiers.
On the Lebanese front, U.S. mediators met Tuesday in Rome with Israeli and Lebanese diplomats to discuss a framework agreement signed in recent weeks under which Israel committed to withdrawing from two designated "pilot zones" in southern Lebanon and allowing the Lebanese Armed Forces to deploy in their place.
The Israeli military has not yet carried out those withdrawals.
Lebanon has demanded a clear timetable. Israeli officials say they need to first verify the zones are free of Hezbollah weapons and military infrastructure, while Lebanese officials argue the U.S. military should be the arbiter of that question. The dispute has slowed negotiations between Jerusalem and Beirut at a sensitive moment, with Washington now publicly pressing Israel to move faster on multiple fronts simultaneously.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
1 min read
