Trump ‘not confident’ Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal will hold through all 3 phases

US President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL | Published January 22, 2025

New US president ‘might’ help rebuild Gaza, which has ‘phenomenal location’; Hamas can’t govern Strip – ‘they didn’t exactly run it well’; Israeli-Saudi normalization may come ‘soon’

US President Donald Trump said Monday he was “not confident” the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that came into effect the previous day would be upheld through all three phases.

“It’s not our war. It is their war. I am not confident,” Trump said in response to a question from reporters while signing executive orders in the Oval Office, shortly after his inauguration.

“But I think they’re very weakened on the other side,” Trump said, apparently referring to Hamas.

 

The first phase of the deal provides for a temporary ceasefire, the release of 33 Israeli hostages, and the freeing of up to 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners and detainees. Further phases, still to be negotiated, are intended to see the release of all hostages, the freeing of an unspecified number of Palestinian inmates, an IDF pullout from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will return to fighting after phase one until all its war goals are fulfilled if the negotiations do not bear fruit, and that the US backs this position.

Regarding Gaza, where huge swaths of the Strip have been turned to rubble amid 15 months of fighting following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 invasion and massacre in Israel, Trump said the enclave “is like a massive demolition site” that will have to be “rebuilt in a different way.”

The real estate mogul noted that Gaza is in a “phenomenal location” along the Mediterranean Sea, with the “best weather,” adding that “beautiful things could be done over there, fantastic things.”

When asked if he’ll help rebuild Gaza, the president responded: “I might.”

However, when questioned as to who will govern Gaza after the war, Trump said it can’t be Hamas: “Most of them are dead,” he noted, and “they didn’t exactly run it well; they ran it viciously and badly.”

Displaced Palestinians return to Rafah, Gaza Strip, Jan. 20, 2025 (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The ceasefire-hostage deal between Israel and the Palestinian terror group came into effect Sunday morning, bringing a halt to the war which began when Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing over 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 hostages during their October 7, 2023, onslaught.

Arab officials familiar with the negotiations believe that Trump’s pressure was critical in securing a breakthrough that led to the three-phase accord. However, relatives of many of those held hostage are concerned that the staged plan will only free some captives, with the others left at the mercy of future talks and the maintenance of the fragile truce.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Netanyahu promised him that fighting will be renewed after the first phase ends.

Hamas terrorists hand over hostages Doron Steinbrecher (center, in pink sweater), Emily Damari and Romi Gonen, abducted during the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners deal, in Gaza City, January 19, 2025 (Reuters)

Speaking on Monday, Trump also reiterated his belief that Hamas wouldn’t have carried out the October 7 onslaught if he had been president at the time, because the terror group’s Iran backers had been “broke” due to his maximum pressure sanctions regime.

“Now they’re rich, but weakened in a different way,” he said, highlighting an IDF operation that reportedly took out Tehran’s air defenses and another that saw the mass detonation of communication devices belonging to Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon.

The newly inaugurated US president, who said in his inauguration address that he intends to be “a peacemaker” and to stop all wars, also said that he thinks a normalization deal might be signed between Israel and Saudi Arabia “soon,” if not by the end of the year.

Earlier Monday, Trump’s new Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff pledged to expand the Abraham Accords, the US-backed agreements struck during Trump’s first term that normalized Israel’s relations with several Arab countries.

“A stable and prosperous Middle East is not an unattainable dream. It is a goal within our reach,” Witkoff said, introducing Trump at an inauguration rally.

Real estate developer Steve Witkoff speaks at US President-elect Donald Trump’s Victory Rally at the Capital One Arena on January 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. (SCOTT OLSON / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

The envoy also laid out the new administration’s four-pronged approach to the region: respect for sovereignty, economic prosperity as a bridge to stability, courageous diplomacy, and reciprocity and accountability.

“We are done carrying the financial burden for nations that are unwilling to fund their own progress. The days of blank checks are over,” Witkoff said.

In an apparent signal toward that approach, Trump later ordered a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance pending assessments of efficiencies and consistency with his foreign policy, in a move that would likely impact US aid to Palestinians.

“All department and agency heads with responsibility for United States foreign development assistance programs shall immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds,” read the executive order signed by Trump just hours after he took office.

It was not immediately clear how broad the order was and what programs, countries, non-governmental organizations and international organizations would be affected by the move.

It was also unclear what funding could be cut given the US Congress sets the federal US government budget. However, the order echoed a return to the approach Trump took during his first term in office between 2017 and 2021.

 

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SOURCE: www.timesofisrael.com

RELATED: Trump ‘not confident’ Israel-Hamas ceasefire will hold as truce enters third day

Newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump has said he’s “not confident” that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement will hold as the hard-won truce entered its third day on Tuesday. Speaking after his inauguration, Trump described Gaza as “a massive demolition site”. 

FRANCE 24 | Published January 22, 2025

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire entered a third day Tuesday, while US President Donald Trump said he doubted the fragile deal would hold.

Desperately needed humanitarian aid has begun to flow into war-battered Gaza after Israel and Hamas conducted the first exchange of hostages for prisoners agreed under the terms of the ceasefire.

Gazans displaced by more than 15 months of war have been walking through an apocalyptic landscape to return to whatever remains of their homes, while rescuers trawl the rubble for bodies.

“Gaza is like a massive demolition site,” Trump said as he signed a flurry of executive orders following his inauguration.

Asked whether he believed the two sides would maintain the truce, Trump said: “That’s not our war; it’s their war. But I’m not confident.”

 

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SOURCE: www.france24.com

 

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