President Donald Trump (left) hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (middle), who gifted him with a golden pager (right) (Pictures: Avi Ohayon/Israel Gpo/ZUMA Press)
President Donald Trump received a rather morbid gift from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to the White House this week.
Netanyahu gave Trump a golden pager with a screen reading, ‘Press with both hands.’ The pager was fitted in a wooden stump which was mounted on a stand like a trophy.
It alludes to a deadly operation that Israel carried out against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon on September 17. It involved detonating thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah operatives and killed 37 people including children and almost 3,000 bystanders, many who were civilians, according to Lebanese officials.
A spokesperson for Netanyahu in December confirmed that the prime minister had given the operation the go-ahead.
President Donald Trump (right) hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) for an extensive five-hour White House meeting on Tuesday (Picture: ZUMA Press)
The pager symbolizes the Israeli prime minister’s decision that led to a turnaround in the war and the starting point for breaking the spirit of the terrorist organization Hezbollah (Picture: X/@IsraeliPM_heb)
The golden plaque on the gift read, ‘To President Donald J. Trump, Our greatest friend and ally. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.’
Netanyahu’s office told Fox News: ‘The pager symbolizes the prime minister’s decision that led to a turning point in the war and marked the beginning of Hezbollah’s strategic collapse.
‘This strategic operation reflects Israel’s strength, technological superiority and tactical ingenuity in confronting its adversaries.’
Trump has not remarked publicly on the bizarre gift from Netanyahu, who on Tuesday became the first foreign leader to visit the US president since he started his second term.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) was the first foreign leader to visit President Donald Trump (left) during his second term (Picture: ZUMA Press)
But a photo shared on Instagram revealed Trump’s own gift to Netanhayu – one that was much less creepy.
It was a signed photograph of the two leaders in the Oval Office, with the note handwritten by Trump: ‘To Bibi, A great leader!’ The image was shared by the prime minister’s son, Yair Netanyahu.
During the meeting, Trump said that the US will take over the Gaza Strip. The US president claimed that Palestinians would ‘love’ to leave Gaza and floated ‘permanently’ resettling them and the US taking ownership of the land.
Trump’s controversial plan has been met with resistance from world leaders including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer who said that Palestinians ‘must be allowed home’.
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