{"id":652527,"date":"2026-10-20T22:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T22:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/652527\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T22:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T22:28:08","slug":"hegseth-confirms-secret-israel-visit-declines-to-discuss-netanyahu-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/652527\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth confirms secret Israel visit, declines to discuss Netanyahu meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\">US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth confirmed Tuesday that he <a class=\"\" album=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/434861\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">had traveled to Israel<\/a> the previous day and held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but declined to disclose what the two discussed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\">Speaking to reporters, Hegseth explained that his visit included meeting with American troops stationed in Israel, as well as an opportunity to speak with the Israeli Prime Minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\">\u201cI was there visiting our troops, (and) had a \u200cchance \u200cto talk to the \u200cprime minister. \u200cOf course, the nature of our conversation is not \u200csomething I would talk about, but they\u2019ve been good partners, and I appreciate that,&#8221; Hegseth said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\">Axios first reported the previously undisclosed visit on Monday, which took place one day after US President Donald Trump <a class=\"\" album=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/434804\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">publicly endorsed Netanyahu<\/a> ahead of Israel&#8217;s upcoming election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\">In his endorsement on Sunday, Trump praised Netanyahu as &#8220;a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\">The President also declined to discuss the substance of Hegseth&#8217;s meeting with Netanyahu <a class=\"\" album=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/434918\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">when questioned<\/a> by reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-a5426b73=\"\" data-v-550660a5-s=\"\">Asked whether he could reveal what had been discussed, Trump replied, &#8220;I can&#8217;t do that now, no.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth confirmed Tuesday that he had traveled to Israel the previous day and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,85,46,18264,43,31348],"class_list":["post-652527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-us","tag-news","tag-pete-hegseth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}