{"id":939906,"date":"2026-10-20T10:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T10:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939906\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T10:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T10:02:11","slug":"hegseth-meets-netanyahu-on-unannounced-israel-visit-benjamin-netanyahu-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939906\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth meets Netanyahu on unannounced Israel visit | Benjamin Netanyahu News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hegseth has travelled to Israel to meet Netanyahu before a closely contested election, Axios reported, citing sources.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Published On 20 Oct 202620 Oct 2026<\/p>\n

United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an undisclosed visit to Israel, according to Axios.<\/p>\n

The meeting between the hawkish ally of US President Donald Trump and the veteran Israeli premier facing a knife-edge election occurred on Monday, Axios reported, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the US Department of Defense told Al Jazeera it \u201cdeclines to comment\u201d on the report.<\/p>\n

Hegseth wrote on a social media post that he had visited US service members in the Central Command area of responsibility, which covers the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Army Radio reported his meeting with Netanyahu took place at an air force base in Israel\u2019s southern desert.<\/p>\n

Trump endorsement<\/p>\n

The reports of the visit come a day after President Trump took<\/a> to his social media platform Truth Social to endorse<\/a>\u00a0Netanyahu in next week\u2019s parliamentary election, the first vote since the Hamas-led<\/a> October 7 attacks in 2023 and Israel\u2019s genocidal<\/a> campaign in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\"(FILES)US President Donald Trump (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands [File: AFP]<\/p>\n

Trump praised the prime minister for being an ally of the US in its war on Iran. He added that Netanyahu had his \u201cComplete and Total Endorsement\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s religious-nationalist coalition is projected to lose its governing majority, although the opposition<\/a> may also struggle to form a government, opinion polls suggest.<\/p>\n

US Vice President JD Vance, however, declined to endorse Netanyahu in an interview earlier on Monday, saying he was not getting involved in Israeli elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI endorse American candidates, and that\u2019s where I\u2019m focused on is the midterms,\u201d Vance, who travelled to Budapest and endorsed<\/a> Viktor Orban in Hungarian elections earlier this year, said in an interview with digital media outlet 2WAY.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not anti-endorsing him, but I\u2019m not pro-endorsing him; I\u2019m not getting involved in Israeli elections,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hegseth has travelled to Israel to meet Netanyahu before a closely contested election, Axios reported, citing sources. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10537,1376,3411,893,43,1258,1259,44,714,41,39,42,40,772,1690],"class_list":["post-939906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}