President Donald Trump said the U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas still stands, even as both sides exchanged fire in Gaza over the weekend.
Hamas is “going to be nice. And if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them if we have to,” Trump told reporters Oct. 20. “They’ll be eradicated.”
When asked whether that would involve American troops, Trump replied, “No.”
The remarks came a day after Trump said in an interview on FOX News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo that Hamas had already broken its pledge to stand down after the ceasefire began earlier this month.
“These are very violent people,” Trump said. “This is a very violent part of the world. Nobody’s seen violence like this. If we have to, we’ll disarm them — whether it’s me or the U.S., or a proxy, could be Israel with our backing. We won’t have boots on the ground. There’s no reason to.”
Asked about Gaza’s future, Trump described the territory as “in rubble” and repeated his plan to create “a board of peace” to lead reconstruction efforts.
“They’ve asked me to be the chairman,” he said. “This is what I needed. To me, peace in the Middle East is a big thing.”
Trump also commented on the toll of the fighting in Gaza, noting the large scale of casualties on both sides when asked about a timeline regarding his threats to disarm Hamas.
“They’ve lived there for a long time,” he said of Hamas fighters. “They’re very violent,” he said, later adding, “Don’t forget, 50,000 of them have been killed.”
He said that on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas “killed 1200” people but added that “Israel can say, ‘We killed 50,000.’ And so you’d say it’s a whole new set of people, and it is. They get replaced by other people, young people. But we’re going to find out, so it’s not a hard timeline.”
Renewed fighting broke out early Oct. 19 despite the declared truce. The Times of Israel reported that an attack on Israeli troops in Rafah killed two soldiers and wounded three, prompting Israeli airstrikes on about 20 targets in Gaza.
The Hamas-run civil defense agency claimed 45 people were killed, though the numbers could not be verified and did not distinguish civilians from fighters, the outlet reported.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire, saying in an X post that it would “continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond forcefully to any violation.”
Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner also weighed in on the conflict during CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Oct. 17. Witkoff said both men felt “betrayed” by Israel’s September airstrike on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, during negotiations.
Kushner added that Trump believed Israel was “getting a little bit out of control in what they were doing, and that it was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests.”
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