Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke and shook hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral service on Tuesday, after both leaders were hosted separately at the White House by US President Donald Trump.

The conversation looked to be quite serious but cordial, and Netanyahu and Zelensky smiled during their handshake.

They had not spoken since January 2025 and the last time they met in person was September 2023. The two explored arranging a formal meeting in Washington on Tuesday, but ultimately did not move ahead with the idea.

Haaretz reported that Netanyahu’s office rebuffed a request to meet, with a Ukrainian source telling the Hebrew daily that the Prime Minister’s Office proposed the sit-down but never responded after Zelensky agreed. There was no immediate comment from either side on the report.

Also Tuesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha and invited him to visit Israel.

“We discussed the challenges facing our nations, including the threat posed by Iran,” said Sa’ar.

“Israel and Ukraine are friends, and I look forward to further deepening our cooperation, including through the establishment of new education centers in Ukrainian hospitals,” wrote Sa’ar on X.

Sybiha said that he accepted Sa’ar’s invitation, adding that he updated his Israeli counterpart “about Russia’s escalation of terror against civilian vessels and freedom of navigation in the Black Sea and their implications for global food security, including for Israel as an importer.”

The Ukrainian foreign minister said he also told Sa’ar about Ukraine’s preparations to commemorate the upcoming 85th anniversary of the Babyn Yar, during which the Nazis and their collaborators murdered more than 33,000 Jews over two days in September 1941.

Ties between Jerusalem and Kyiv have been delicate since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, with Zelensky earlier this year saying that Netanyahu has sought to maintain a neutral stance on the conflict despite Russia providing critical intelligence to Iran in the war with the US and Israel.

Ukraine has sought to purchase Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which Netanyahu ruled that out to avoid antagonizing Russia, while also resisting Ukrainian offers to help Israel counter the threat of drone attacks by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israeli officials routinely defended this stance when Russia controlled the skies over Syria before the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime in 2024. Since then, some Israeli officials have been willing to break more publicly with Moscow, though Netanyahu has avoided doing so.

Zelensky huddles with Trump

The meeting between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office, which like Netanyahu’s closed to the media, followed a consequential meeting at the NATO summit earlier this month in Ankara, Turkey, where the US president announced that his administration will give Ukraine a license to make Patriot defense systems — a long-running request from Kyiv to counter Russian missile attacks.

Taken together,........

© The Times of Israel