Trump: ‘Nothing’ will jeopardize Gaza ceasefire, Israel ‘should hit back’ if troops killed

US President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that “nothing is going to jeopardize” the ceasefire in Gaza, but added that Israel “should hit back” if its soldiers were killed. His remarks came a day after an Israeli soldier was killed in Rafah, and as Jerusalem and the terror group accused each other of violating the ceasefire deal.

“They killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back. And they should hit back,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

“Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave. They said they would be good, and if they’re good, they’re going to be happy, and if they’re not good, they’re going to be terminated,” he continued, referring to the apparent understanding that was reached when his top aides met with Hamas’s lead negotiators in Egypt in the final hours before a ceasefire agreement was reached.

A senior Trump aide told reporters earlier this month that US special envoy Steve Witkoff and fellow Trump adviser Jared Kushner provided a verbal assurance to Hamas that Washington would hold Israel to the terms of the deal and not allow it to resume the war so long as Hamas kept its end of the agreement.

“We actually met with people [who] were leading [Hamas], and… I think they’re unhappy when they see some people being killed,” the US president said.

Trump has claimed that Hamas officials told his aides Witkoff and Kushner that they would disarm, but the terror organization has repeatedly said otherwise.

Trump’s full 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war, which he unveiled last month, calls for “a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors.” However, this was included in the second phase of the plan and was not part of the Israel-Hamas agreement that was signed on October 9. That latter text only focused on the initial ceasefire, hostage-prisoner swap, IDF pullback and humanitarian aid provisions, while thornier issues pertaining to the post-war management of Gaza and Hamas’s disarmament were kicked down the road.

Trump again claimed that many countries have reached out to him to the US expressing interest in helping “terminate” Hamas if necessary, adding that Japan offered during his visit there on Tuesday to send “experts” to the region.

Arab and European diplomats have repeatedly denied that this is the case in conversations to The Times of Israel, explaining that countries may be willing to contribute troops to help stabilize postwar Gaza by securing the borders, assisting with humanitarian aid and training Palestinian police, but are not prepared to risk their own soldiers by entering combat against Hamas operatives to try to disarm them.

‘Little skirmishes here and there’

Speaking hours before Trump, US Vice President JD Vance similarly predicted the truce will hold despite Tuesday’s flare-up in fighting.

“The ceasefire is holding. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there,” Vance told reporters during a visit to Capitol Hill.

“We know that Hamas or somebody else within Gaza attacked an IDF soldier,” he added, notably refraining from definitively assigning blame to Hamas.

“We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president’s peace is going to hold despite it,” Vance added.

Vance made the comments after the Israel Defense Forces launched a wave of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in response to the attack on soldiers in Rafah. Hamas claimed it was not behind the attack.

The fighting came amid growing anger in Israel over Hamas’s failure to return the bodies of the remaining 13 deceased hostages it is holding.

That anger was compounded earlier in the day, when the military released footage showing Hamas staging the fake recovery of Ofir Tzarfati’s partial remains in eastern Gaza City in front of the Red Cross, before handing them over on Monday night instead of the promised body of one of the 13 slain hostages.

Red Cross: Unacceptable fakery

The Red Cross issued a rare statement on Tuesday criticizing Hamas for staging the recovery of the remains.

The organization said in a statement that it was “aware” of the IDF-issued footage showing the scene unfolding, adding that it “accepted to be present in good faith in its role as a neutral intermediary between the parties,” and that its staff “were not aware that a deceased person had been placed there prior to their arrival, as seen in the footage.”

“Our team only observed what appeared to be the recovery of remains without prior knowledge of the circumstances leading up to it,” the statement said.

“It is unacceptable that a fake recovery was staged, when so much depends on this agreement being upheld and when so many families are still anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones,” it added.

“The ICRC is raising its concerns directly with the parties. We urgently reiterate our call for human remains to be handled in a dignified manner that upholds international humanitarian law obligations, as well as forensic standards. The return of human remains to their loved one should never be political.”

Hamas claims to find two more hostages’ bodies

Hamas, meanwhile, informed Middle Eastern mediators on Tuesday night that it remains committed to the ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, echoing a statement it has since issued publicly, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.

In its message to Egyptian, Qatari, and Turkish mediators, Hamas insisted that it is committed to returning the remaining hostages’ bodies as quickly as possible. Israel has pushed back on this claim, saying Hamas has many more bodies it could return and pointing to the staged recovery of Tzarfati’s remains.

The Hamas message to the Mideast mediators, also shared with the US, claimed the terrorist group has not committed any ceasefire violations since it went into effect on October 10, while accusing Israel of repeated breaches — including the killing of about 100 Gazans, crossing the Yellow Line dividing the IDF-controlled half of the Strip from the Hamas-controlled side to the west, and keeping the Rafah Crossing closed, the source familiar with the matter said.

Israel asserts its troops have only responded to imminent threats posed by Palestinian operatives and insists that Hamas is the one violating the ceasefire by not returning the remaining bodies. Late Tuesday night, the military wing of Hamas announced that it managed to “retrieve” the bodies of two hostages in Gaza earlier in the day, although it did not say it intended to hand them over to Israel overnight.

The Al-Qassam Brigades named the two hostages it claimed to have found. Israeli media outlets generally refrain from publishing the names until the families of the hostages have been notified.

Earlier, Hamas said it had located the body of a hostage in a tunnel in southern Gaza, and planned to hand it over to Israel at 8 p.m. Hamas later said it was postponing the handover due to Israel’s “violations” of the ceasefire.

Israel notified Trump about Gaza strikes after order given

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office told The Times of Israel that Israel notified US President Donald Trump’s administration of its decision to carry out strikes in Gaza City in response to Hamas violations of the ceasefire after the premier ordered the attacks.

“The prime minister made the decision to carry out the strike, gave the order to the military to execute it, and afterward informed the United States,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.

A US official and an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that Jerusalem updated Washington after the decision was made but before the strikes took place.

“We were informed,” a Trump administration official said, noting that the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat, tasked with overseeing the ceasefire and monitoring progress on Washington’s Gaza peace plan, facilitated communication between the two sides.

An Israeli official confirmed that “there were talks with the Americans” regarding Israel’s planned response before the strikes were carried out.

According to the officials, discussions took place on both political and military levels.

Even before the incident in Rafah on Tuesday, discussions were held between the Prime Minister’s Office and the White House on how to respond to Hamas’s failure to return the bodies of deceased hostages still held in Gaza, according to a Channel 12 news report, which cited Israeli and American officials.

Netanyahu initially hesitated to authorize a military response in Gaza over the violations due to resistance from the US, but chose to do so after the attack on troops in Rafah, according to the report.

Hours before the Rafah attack, Netanyahu had been seeking a green light from Trump for a military response to Hamas, but had not received one before the incident occurred, the report added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israel shared with Washington and the CIA the video of the staged recovery of Tzarfati’s remains, charging that it constituted a ceasefire violation.

Senior Trump administration officials, however, told their Israeli counterparts they did not view the footage as a clear breach and urged Israel not to take “radical measures” that could risk collapsing the truce, Channel 12 reported. Instead, they suggested issuing a tougher ultimatum to Hamas to return the bodies within 72 hours, after which Israel would receive a US green light to act or to expand the IDF’s “Yellow Line” of control inside Gaza.

In his initial meeting with defense officials on Tuesday, no response was approved by Netanyahu, and he emphasized that Israel should engage with Washington before proceeding.

Following the Rafah attack, however, Netanyahu held a smaller security cabinet session, during which he decided to renew airstrikes in Gaza and advance plans to expand the yellow line — moves which are now at the center of ongoing talks with the Trump administration on how far Israel should go, according to the Israeli TV report.

Netanyahu has insisted that Israel is a sovereign state that makes its own decisions on national security matters, in the wake of growing rumblings that key decisions about the future of the Gaza Strip are being made in Washington.

Criticism emerged after the IDF blamed Hamas for a deadly attack on troops last week and launched a wave of intense strikes against the terror group in response, but quickly returned to the ceasefire after the US allegedly pressured Jerusalem to rein in its reaction. Hamas had said the incident occurred in an area under Israeli control, where it claimed to have had no contact with its operatives for months.

Agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.