Trump says he could tell Israel to renew Gaza fighting, but giving Hamas chance to ‘behave’ first

US President Donald Trump says he could ask Israel to return to withdrawn areas of Gaza and eradicate Hamas if he wanted to, but he is holding off for now, in order to give the fragile ceasefire he brokered earlier this month a chance to suceed.

“We made a deal with Hamas that they’re going to be very good, they’re going to behave, they’re going to be nice, and if not, we’re going to eradicate them if we have to,” Trump tells reporters in the White House.

He reiterates his belief that yesterday’s deadly attack on IDF troops in Gaza was not authorized by the terror group’s leadership.

“I don’t believe it was the leadership, but they have some rebellion in there among themselves. They killed some people — a lot of people,” Trump continues, appearing to transition to speak about the dozens of executions Hamas has carried out against rival clan members, not the attack on Israeli troops on Sunday.

“But this is a violent group… They got very rambunctious and they did things that they shouldn’t be doing. If they keep doing it then we’re going to straighten it out, and it’ll happen very quickly and pretty violently,” Trump says, again suggesting that the US will be the one to take out Hamas before clarifying that others will do Washington’s bidding.

“We had countries calling me when they saw the killing with Hamas, saying, ‘We’d love to go in and take care of the situation ourselves,'” he claims. No country has publicly expressed willingness to send troops into Gaza, save for Indonesia. Azerbaijan and Turkey have privately expressed willingness, according to officials familiar with the matter.

“In addition, Israel would go in in two minutes if I asked them. I could tell them, ‘Go in and take care of it.’ But right now, we haven’t said that. We’re going to give it a little chance,” Trump says.