ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu left for the United States today, where he will become the first foreign leader to meet Donald Trump since the US president returned to office.

The trip coincides with the news breaking of a criminal investigation into suspected offences by his wife, Sara Netanyahu.

The prime minister’s visit to the US also comes as two fragile truces hold – for the most part – between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

Before boarding his flight, Netanyahu said the pair would discuss “victory over Hamas, achieving the release of all our hostages and dealing with the Iranian terror axis”.

During his first term, Trump declared Israel “never had a better friend in the White House”, an attitude that appears to have endured.

Before departing, Netanyahu called it “telling” that he would be the first foreign leader to meet Trump since his inauguration.

“I think it’s a testimony to the strength of the Israeli-American alliance,” he said.

Criminal probe

Israeli police are conducting a criminal investigation into Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Benjamin Netanyahu, the office of the state attorney said in a letter made public today.

“A criminal investigation was opened” into suspected criminal offences, the office said in a letter to an Israeli opposition lawmaker who had accused Sara Netanyahu of tampering in her husband’s corruption trial after the broadcast in December of a television news investigation.

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Naama Lazimi, Knesset member for the Democrats, shared the letter on X on Sunday confirming the criminal investigation was launched on 26 December, adding that her office had contacted the state attorney following the investigation by Israeli Channel 12′s Uvda news programme.

The show alleged that Sara Netanyahu had tried to intimidate a key witness in her husband’s ongoing corruption trial.

She also organised demonstrations to harass the Attorney General, his deputy and other individuals deemed hostile to her husband, according to the programme.

The state attorney’s office added the investigation was being “conducted by the Israel Police accompanied by the cyber department of the state attorney’s office”.

In December, Benjamin Netanyahu testified in the corruption trial in which he faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of public trust in three separate cases, calling the charges against him “ridiculous”.

The trial, which had been delayed many times since it first began in May 2020, is scheduled to last for months, with an appeals process that could further prolong matters.

Netanyahu, who filed multiple requests to delay the proceedings based on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing.

In the first case, Netanyahu and his wife are accused of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewellery and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favours.

He is the first sitting premier to face criminal trial in the country.