Trump plan to invite Netanyahu to Gaza summit aborted after Erdoğan warning | Gaza

A last-minute plan by Donald Trump to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to a multinational Gaza summit in Egypt had to be aborted after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he would not land his plane in Sharm el-Sheikh if the invitation stood.

The mid-air power power struggle started after it was announced that the Israeli prime minister had accepted a late invitation from Trump to the conference being jointly chaired by the US president and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, in Egypt.

Netanyahu’s presence at the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh had apparently been sealed by Trump in a phone call from Israel on Monday morning with Sisi.

It is not clear if Erdoğan’s refusal to land for the summit was the cause of Netanyahu changing his plans, but it is known that he spoke to Sisi to raise his objections from his plane above Egypt.

A statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office said: “Prime Minister Netanyahu was invited by US President Trump to participate in a conference taking place today in Egypt. The prime minister thanked President Trump for his invitation but stated that he would not be able to attend due to the proximity of the event to the start of the holiday.”

Figures on the extreme right in Netanyahu’s coalition government had also threatened to resign if he went to the conference.

International criminal court arrest warrants have been issued against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza, and while Egypt is not a signatory to the court, his presence at the summit would have been contentious, including among those Arab states that have not normalised relations with Israel. More than 20 world leaders were due to attend the hastily arranged summit.

The row about Netanyahu’s presence shows how hard it will be for some Muslim countries to normalise relations with Israel in the way Trump wants.

Pictures of Erdoğan negotiating with Netanyahu or shaking hands with the Israeli leader would have been disastrous for the Turkish leader domestically, and would have also led to questions about Ankara’s planned role in the international stabilisation force that is due to look after security in Gaza. Erdoğan has repeatedly called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.