Hamas celebrates after President Trump declares that given Board of Peace efforts to move forward with Gaza disarmament plan, Israel should end attacks on Gaza terrorists.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
President Donald Trump on Monday publicly called on Israel to halt strikes in the Gaza Strip, saying Hamas is moving toward giving up its weapons as Washington presses ahead with a plan aimed at disarming the terror group and eventually securing an Israeli withdrawal from the enclave.
Israel “should not be striking in Gaza,” Trump said during a telephone interview with Fox News.
“Ultimately, they are giving up their guns,” the president added, expressing confidence that Hamas would comply with the central demand of the US-backed framework.
Trump’s remarks marked one of his clearest public calls yet for Israeli military restraint in Gaza and came as his administration sought to bridge a widening dispute between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas over how the next phase of the agreement should proceed.
The statement was particularly significant because Netanyahu has insisted that Israel must retain freedom of military action in Gaza until Hamas is actually disarmed, rather than relying on promises that it will do so later.
Trump, by contrast, appeared willing to give the diplomatic process more room to operate.
His comments came as his son-in-law and senior envoy Jared Kushner held nearly four hours of talks with Netanyahu in Jerusalem following an unusual direct meeting with senior Hamas officials in Egypt.
The administration has been trying to advance a 15-point roadmap unveiled in late July under which Hamas would surrender its weapons in stages and Israeli forces would gradually withdraw from Gaza.
Israel and Hamas have accepted sharply different interpretations of how that process should work.
Netanyahu has said Israeli troops will not withdraw until Hamas has fully disarmed and has resisted proposals that could limit the IDF’s ability to strike operatives or military infrastructure it considers a threat.
Hamas, meanwhile, has said it is prepared to proceed under the US framework but argues that Israel must first stop its attacks and begin implementing its own obligations.
Trump’s remarks appeared to place public pressure on Israel in that dispute.
A Board of Peace official later said the president was referring primarily to Israeli strikes that were not responses to imminent threats, rather than denying Israel the right to defend its forces against an immediate attack.
Kushner similarly stressed that Washington was not seeking to strip Israel of its ability to act in self-defense.
The distinction is nonetheless likely to remain contentious.
Israeli officials have argued that Hamas continues to rebuild capabilities and organize attacks under cover of the ceasefire, making it difficult to separate what constitutes an “imminent” threat from activity Israel believes must be disrupted before it matures.
During Monday’s talks, Israeli intelligence officials reportedly presented Kushner with information on what Jerusalem considers Hamas violations of the ceasefire.
Netanyahu also argued that Israeli public opinion strongly favors preventing Gaza’s reconstruction before Hamas is disarmed and preserving the IDF’s ability to strike developing threats.
Kushner, however, urged Israel to take limited steps that would allow Washington to test whether Hamas is genuinely prepared to follow through.
“The last time Steve Witkoff and I met with Hamas leaders, it led to the release of all the hostages,” Kushner told Netanyahu, according to a US official briefed on the talks.
Kushner later said the Hamas officials he met had said “all the right things,” while stressing that words would not be enough.
“We could be seeing progress” within roughly 30 days on the removal of some weapons, he said, with efforts to fill Hamas tunnels potentially beginning over the following 60 to 90 days.
Under one mechanism being discussed, Hamas would transfer its weapons to Gaza’s new Palestinian technocratic administration, which would then turn them over to an International Stabilization Force for destruction.
Washington has simultaneously made clear that reconstruction of Gaza will remain tied to demilitarization.
“We will not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until the demilitarization occurs,” Kushner said.
The United States and Israel agreed during Monday’s meetings to establish working groups dealing separately with Hamas’s disarmament and Gaza’s humanitarian conditions, including water and sanitation.
They also discussed creating a deconfliction mechanism under which Israel could report activity it considers threatening before immediately launching an attack.
US-backed officials and Egyptian mediators could then raise the issue with Hamas, potentially preventing individual incidents from escalating.
The proposal would not prevent Israel from responding to what it considers an imminent attack.
Trump’s intervention followed a series of Israeli strikes in Gaza despite American efforts to stabilize the ceasefire.
The IDF said on August 12 that it struck a Hamas commander who was preparing attacks against Israeli troops. Additional operations over the weekend targeted Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, including individuals Israel said participated in the October 7, 2023 attack and hostage-taking.
Trump has increasingly presented himself as confident that Hamas will ultimately disarm, putting his public position somewhat ahead of the Israeli government’s assessment of the group’s intentions.
Netanyahu has taken the opposite approach, insisting that Israeli concessions cannot precede verified disarmament.
Hamas welcomed Trump’s call for Israel to stop striking Gaza and sought to turn the president’s remarks into additional pressure on Jerusalem.
“The remarks confirm President Trump’s commitment to the ceasefire track,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Qassem called on Trump to “pressure the occupation government to abide by what was agreed upon” and advance implementation of the next phase.
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