Rapturously received in the Knesset, Trump tells Israel it won the war, now it’s time for peace

US President Donald Trump declared “the historic dawn of the new Middle East” in a triumphant address before the Knesset on Monday, as the final 20 living hostages were released from Gaza under a US-brokered ceasefire deal.

Trump said it marked “not only the end of war, but the end of an age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God.”

He told the lawmakers that Israel had no more to achieve on the battlefield and must work toward peace in the Middle East, and said he would deliver a similar message to regional leaders in Egypt later in the day.

The president pressed Israel to look past the war, saying it had achieved all it could “by force of arms.”

“You’ve won. I mean, you’ve won,” he said. “Now it is time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”

“What a victory it’s been,” added Trump, noting that if Israel had kept fighting for years, “it was getting bad. It was getting heated.”

“The timing of this [deal to end the fighting] is brilliant, and I said, Bibi [Netanyahu], you’re going to remembered for this far more than if you kept this thing going, going, going, kill, kill, kill,” Trump said.

Directly addressing Netanyahu, he said: “I just want to congratulate you for having the courage to say that’s it, we’ve won, and now let’s enjoy our lives and let’s rebuild Israel and make it stronger and bigger and better than it’s ever been before.”

The president’s lengthy address included expressions of thanks to numerous people, but he focused especially on Netanyahu, hailing his patriotism, and declaring that “his partnership did so much to make this day possible.”

“He’s not easy, I wanna tell you,” said Trump. “He’s not the easiest guy to deal with. But that’s what makes him great.”

Later, after complimenting Yair Lapid as “a nice man,” he adlibbed to Netanyahu: “Now you can be a little bit nicer because you’re not at war anymore, Bibi.”

In fact, Netanyahu has not formally called an end to the war, but Trump has said repeatedly in the past few days — including in an answer to a question on his flight, and again to a reporter in the Knesset — that “the war is over.”

Countries in the region “like Israel a lot more today than they did five weeks ago,”  Trump said, likely referring to Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Doha.

“You’ve come back strong because it was getting to be a little nasty out there in the world, and ultimately the world wins,” he said. He praised Israel for doing so much for such a small country. “The world is loving Israel again.”

Trump promised to help rebuild Gaza and urged Palestinians to “turn forever from the path of terror and violence.”

“After tremendous pain and death and hardship,” he said, “now is the time to concentrate on building their people up instead of trying to tear Israel down.”

Outreach to Iran

Trump even made a gesture to Iran, where he bombed three nuclear sites during the country’s brief war with Israel earlier this year, by saying “the hand of friendship and cooperation is always open.”

“We merely want to live in peace,” he said. “We don’t want any looming threats over our heads.”

He said it would be great if a peace deal could be hammered out between Iran and Israel. “Would you be happy with that? Wouldn’t it be nice?” he asked Netanyahu. “Because I think they want to. I think they’re tired.”

Trump said Iran is not restarting its nuclear program. “The last thing they want to do is start digging holes again in mountains that just got blown up. They want to survive, OK?”

Iran, which has called for Israel’s elimination and funded a network of terror groups that seek its destruction, has rejected the notion of normalizing its relations with Jerusalem.

En route to Egypt

The president received a hero’s welcome from both sides of a jubilant Knesset, addressing the house during a brief visit to Israel timed to coincide with Hamas’s release of the last living hostages held in Gaza, two years after the terror group invaded Israel, killed 1,200 people and abducted 251.

Trump was set to meet with some of the 20 newly freed hostages at the Sheba Medical Center, but ran out of time; he talked with families of hostages and previously freed hostages earlier at the Knesset.

Netanyahu’s full cabinet voted Friday in favor of a government resolution on Gaza that provides for all hostages to be freed in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners in accordance with the first phase of Trump’s broader Gaza peace plan. The US president was flying on to Egypt later in the day, for the international summit in Sharm el-Sheikh intended to endorse that wider vision.

“They might not be there by the time I get there, but we’ll give it a shot,” Trump joked, after needling Israeli leaders for talking so much before it was his turn at the podium.

There was a chance that Netanyahu would join him, with Trump having apparently brokered a call in which Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah invited him to attend. Egypt even announced Netanyahu’s attendance. However, Netanyahu’s office said later that he would not be going, because the summit was too close to Monday evening’s start of the Simchat Torah festival.

“This will be remembered as the moment that everything began to change,” the president told MKs. “It will be the golden age of Israel, and the golden age of the Middle East.”

Trump thanked the Arab and Muslim countries that pressured Hamas to free the hostages it was holding, calling it “an incredible triumph for Israel to have all these nations working together as partners in peace.”

Trump says he was heading to Egypt to “meet with the most powerful, the richest nations in the world.”

“The Middle East is finally ready to embrace its extraordinary potential,” he said. Extremism, jihadism, and antisemitism have been a “disaster… They’ve totally backfired.” They have delivered “failure and death,” and not weakened Israel. The nations that decided to make peace “are now among the most successful in the region. They’re getting along with Israel and they’re doing great.”

“You’ve done the right thing in defending yourself,” he said. “You’re not going to have to worry so much about it.”

“You’ve won, and now you can build. It’s going to be a miracle.”

All the countries that signed the Abraham Accords remained in the pact during the war, Trump noted. “They stayed because of loyalty, and they stayed because it was really good business.” He said he hoped that “all of the countries we are seeking, join quickly; no games, no nothing.”

“Now at least, not only for Israel, but also for Palestinians and many others, the long and painful nightmare is finally over,” he promised.

As the dust settles and debris is cleared in Gaza, he said, “the dawn breaks on a region transformed, and a beautiful and much brighter future appears suddenly within your reach. This is now a very exciting time for Israel.”

Israeli lawmakers chanted Trump’s name and gave him standing ovation after standing ovation. Some people in the audience wore red hats that resembled his “Make America Great Again” caps, although these versions said “Trump, The Peace President.”

Netanyahu commits to Trump’s Gaza peace plan

Netanyahu, speaking before the president, hailed Trump as “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” and he promised to work with him going forward.

He noted that, today, the Jewish calendar “marks the end of two years of war,” and said Israel well remembers how it began with the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion and slaughter. “These monsters take babies as hostages,” Netanyahu said. In response, Netanyahu continued, “Israel did what it had to do. With indomitable courage, we set out to defend our people, to defeat our enemies, and to release our hostages.”

Israel achieved “amazing victories over Hamas and the entire Iranian terror axis,” he said, and Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program was “rolled back.”

Commending Trump for “putting forward a proposal” on Gaza “that got the backing of almost the entire world,” Netanyahu endorsed it as “a proposal that brings all our hostages home, a proposal that ends the war by achieving all our objectives, a proposal that opens the door to an historic expansion of peace in our region and beyond our region.”

“Mr President, you are committed to this peace. I am committed to this peace,” Netanyahu said. “And together, Mr. President, we will achieve this peace.”

‘Never again’

Trump recalled how the war started on Simchat Torah, using the Hebrew name. Monday evening marks the start of that same festival, precisely two years after the Hamas slaughter.

He described that terrorist onslaught as “one of the most evil and heinous desecrations of innocent life the world has ever seen, and the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.”

He said Hamas’s cruelty in the October 7, 2023, attack “struck to the core of humanity itself.” America joins Israel in the vows “Never forget,” and “Never again,” he said.

He said that Israel has shouldered burdens during the war “that only a proud and faithful people could withstand.”

Toward the end of his hour-plus address, Trump highlighted the resilience of the hostage families whom he has met over the past year.

“I’ve looked into their eyes. I’ve seen the worst nightmares of their suffering, but I’ve also seen something else: the beautiful love of the people,” he said. “That holds things together — the love that gives you the courage to carry on through thousands of years of persecution and repression and to emerge with the heart of David.”

“What you’ve done is a miracle,” he says of Israel. “Look at your size. Look at your chances when it all started… You are safer today, stronger today, and more respected today than at any time in the history of Israel,” Trump said. “People used to say it wouldn’t exist. They don’t say that anymore.”

“If safety, security and coexistence can thrive here in the winding alleys and ancient paths of Jerusalem, then surely peace and respect and flourish among the nations of the broader Middle East.”

“The God who once dwelled among his people in this city still calls us, in the words of scripture, to turn from evil and do good, to seek peace and pursue it. That is why, even after 3,000 years of pain and conflict, the people of Israel have never given up… You want the promise of Zion, you want the promise of success and hope and love and God,” Trump added. “And the people of America have never lost faith in the promise of a great and blessed future for all of us.”

“From the very first day that modern Israel was founded, we have stood together through thick and thin… We have built industries together. We have made discoveries together. We have confronted evil together, and we have waged war together.”

“Perhaps most beautifully of all, we have made peace together. And this week, against all odds, we have done the impossible and brought our hostages home,” Trump said to another round of applause.

“Now, we’re going to forge a future that is worthy of our heritage. We’re going to build a legacy that all the people of this region can be proud of — new bonds of friendship, cooperation and commerce will join Tel Aviv to Dubai, Haifa to Beirut, Jerusalem to Damascus; from Israel to Egypt, from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, from India to Pakistan, from Indonesia to Iraq, from Syria to Bahrain, Turkey to Jordan, the United Arab Emirates to Oman and Armenia to Azerbaijan — another war that I just settled.”

“We are going to have hope, harmony, opportunity and happiness here in the spiritual and geographic center of the entire world… Israel, America and all of the nations of the Middle East will soon be safer, stronger, greater and more prosperous than ever before.

“This has been truly an honor,” he concludes. “And I love Israel. I’m with you all the way. You will be bigger, better, stronger and more loving than ever before.”

Pardon Netanyahu

The Republican president used the opportunity earlier in his address to settle political scores and thank his supporters, criticizing Democratic predecessors and praising a top donor, Miriam Adelson, in the audience.

In an unexpected detour from his prepared remarks, Trump called on the Israeli president to pardon Netanyahu, whom he described as “one of the greatest” wartime leaders. Netanyahu is on trial in three corruption charges, and denies any wrongdoing.

“I have an idea, why don’t you give Netanyahu a pardon?” Trump said, in comments directed at Herzog. He added, in a reference to the gifts Netanyahu allegedly received, “Who cares about cigars and champagne?”

Praise from across the aisle

Other speakers included opposition leader Yair Lapid who lauded the American leader for saving “millions from the horrors of war,” and called on Trump to advance normalization efforts between Israel and other countries.

“Mr. President, you are the one who can make it happen — as you did with the historic Abraham Accords. Then, too, no one believed it was possible. Then, too, you imposed your vision on everyone,” the Yesh Atid faction leader said. “While others spoke of difficulties, you created opportunity. You can be the one to bring the next wave of peace. The people of Israel support this. They want it. We are ready.”

Lapid gets a standing ovation (including from Bibi) when he declares in Knesset that “when you stand with Israel, you stand on the side of justice.” pic.twitter.com/q4P1Tmwqgl

— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) October 13, 2025

Appealing to the “deal-maker who understands value” to deepen “our eternal alliance,” Lapid said, “if there were one stock in the world I would invest in today, it would be the State of Israel.”

Lapid as well as Knesset Speaker and Likud MK Amir Ohana bemoaned that the president had not won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaking for over 20 minutes, Ohana called Trump a “colossus who will be enshrined in the pantheon of history,” declaring that the Jewish people will remember him “thousands of years from now.”

Reciting the blessing to be said upon seeing a king, Ohana thanked Trump for visiting Israel and recited a list of his accomplishments, from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US embassy to the city to brokering the Abraham Accords and striking the Iranian nuclear program during this summer’s war.

“Mr. President, you stand before the people of Israel not as another American president, but as a giant of Jewish history — one for whom we must look back, two and a half millennia into the mists of time to find a parallel, in Cyrus the Great,” Ohana said, referring to an ancient Persian king who allowed the Jews to return from exile in Babylonia and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem.

“What the world needs now are more leaders who are brave, resolute, strong, and bold. The world needs more Trumps,” he continued, declaring that “there was not a single person on this planet who did more than you to advance peace.”

‘Recognize Palestine’

MK Ayman Odeh, chairman of the mainly Arab Hadash-Ta’al party, was removed from the Knesset plenum after holding up a sign calling on Trump to “recognize Palestine” early in the president’s speech. The Arab-Israeli MK is a vocal proponent of Palestinian statehood, which Israel’s government rejects.

Ofer Cassif, the party’s only Jewish MK, also attempted to hold up a sign and was removed as well.

After they were removed, Trump declared, “That was very efficient,” and continued his speech.

Hadash-Ta’al MKs Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif removed from Trump’s speech after holding up signs calling to “recognize Palestine.”

Trump quips that the ejection was “very efficient.” pic.twitter.com/0tvs7JbSAS

— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) October 13, 2025

The lawmakers later defended their conduct on social media. In a post on X, Cassif declared that he and Odeh “didn’t come to disrupt, but to demand justice.”

“True peace that will save both peoples of this land from destruction will only come with the end of the occupation and apartheid and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel,” Cassif wrote. “Refuse to be occupiers! Resist the government of bloodshed!”

“They removed me from the plenum just because I raised the simplest demand, a demand that the entire international community agrees on: to recognize a Palestinian state,” posted Odeh.