President Trump told Israeli Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call on Thursday that Israel should begin pulling its forces out of Syria and pushed him to do the same in Lebanon, according to American and Israeli officials.
A United States (US) official said that Trump told Netanyahu that Israel’s military presence in Syrian territory is creating tensions and could trigger an escalation. “They don’t want you there. You should redeploy,” Trump told Netanyahu, according to the official, who added that the same message applied to Lebanon. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office responded in a statement that “the Prime Minister, for his part, raised the need for security zones along Israel’s borders.”
The call took place a day after Trump met his Syrian counterpart, Ahmed al-Sharaa, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey. The Trump administration had spent months trying to broker a new security agreement between Israel and Syria before concluding that Netanyahu was unwilling to make the concessions being sought, which US officials say included a gradual IDF (Israel Defence Forces) withdrawal from Syrian territory occupied since the fall of the Assad government in December 2024. Southern Syria has also seen a series of protests and clashes between Syrian citizens and Israeli soldiers in recent weeks over the IDF’s presence there.
On Tuesday, American mediators met Israeli and Lebanese diplomats in Rome to discuss enforcing a framework agreement the two countries signed weeks earlier. Under that agreement, Israel had committed to withdrawing from two “pilot zones” it occupies in southern Lebanon and allowing the Lebanese army to take over there, though the IDF has yet to redeploy from either zone.
The Lebanese government wants the process to move forward and has asked for a firm timetable on further withdrawals, while Israeli officials maintain that they first need to confirm the pilot zones are free of Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure before proceeding, a determination the Lebanese side believes should be made by the US military instead.
Netanyahu is heading into an election in three months that carries major stakes for both his political future and his personal legal situation, making him unlikely to take any real steps toward withdrawing from Syrian territory or expanding redeployments in Lebanon beyond what he has already agreed to.
Trump’s request adds further pressure on him regardless, since the IDF currently holds large sections of southern Lebanon and southern Syria, which the Israeli government argues is necessary to guard against another attack similar to October 7. Some senior Israeli officials favor holding onto that territory indefinitely and a portion of them have even called for building Jewish settlements there.
The White House did not comment on the call but also did not dispute the account. A US official told the outlet that Trump maintains a close relationship with Netanyahu and reaffirmed that Israel remains a strong American ally, adding that no one has been a bigger friend to Israel or a stronger advocate for peace than Trump.
