Allies of former President Donald Trump held meetings with top officials in Israel last week to discuss the current conflict in Gaza, according to three sources familiar with the trip.
The visit – led by Keith Kellogg, a leading national security adviser to the former president who also served in the Trump administration – comes as the presumptive Republican nominee has offered few specifics on how he would approach the war in Gaza, which has emerged in the US as a divisive political issue in a presidential election year. The group that visited Israel is set to deliver a trip report to interested parties, including the Trump campaign, in the coming week, the sources said.
It’s unclear who in Trump’s orbit was aware of the visit beforehand, but one Trump adviser told CNN the campaign learned about the trip after the fact. The visit included meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, the sources said.
Kellogg made the trip in his current role as the co-chair of the America First Policy Institute and was accompanied by a handful of other national security experts from the think tank, which appears to be laying the groundwork for a second Trump administration.
One source familiar with the meetings said the group came away from the trip with the impression that a two-state solution was not on the table in the near term and that while Israel would favor a short-term halt in the fighting to get hostages freed, the current government is not interested in a long-term ceasefire.
Trump, who has revealed little so far on how he would approach the crisis, often says in campaign rallies and speeches that he was the most pro-Israel president in history.
Just days after the group returned, Trump was…
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