US President Donald Trump said Monday he could ask Israel to return to withdrawn areas of Gaza and “eradicate” Hamas if he wanted to, but he is holding off for now in order to give the fragile ceasefire he brokered earlier this month a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 succeed.
“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 told reporters in the White House on the same day that his senior advisers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held meetings in Jerusalem and as Vice President JD Vance departed for Israel.
Trump reiterated his belief that a deadly attack on IDF troops in Gaza on Sunday — to which Israel, blaming Hamas, responded with a wave of airstrikes before announcing it was resuming the truce — 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 continued, appearing to transition to speaking 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 said, 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,’” the US president claimed.
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 to go in. 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 continued.
The US president appeared on Monday to remain devoted to preserving the shaky US-brokered ceasefire, given the concerted effort by the Trump administration to keep the truce in place.
The truce agreement was presented as the first stage of a larger peace plan pushed by Trump, which calls for Hamas to be disarmed and Gaza demilitarized and handed over to a transitional, “technocratic” government. No deal has been signed regarding the latter stages of the plan.
Report: Witkoff, Kushner urged PM not to endanger truce
Netanyahu told the Knesset on Monday that he is “working non-stop” to secure the release of the remaining slain hostages being held in Gaza, including in his meeting that day with Witkoff and Kushner.
According to Channel 12, which cited sources familiar with the discussion, the two envoys urged Netanyahu on Monday not to take any action that could endanger the truce, and also met with senior IDF officials to verify progress on the larger peace deal.
“Do not act in a way that would endanger the ceasefire. We want to do everything to reach the second phase,” the envoys reportedly told Netanyahu, adding that while “self-defense” is acceptable, “risking the ceasefire” is not.
US envoy Steve Witkoff (left) and US President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (right) flank Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a cabinet meeting on October 9, 2025. (Maayan Toaf / GPO)
Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who also attended the meeting, conveyed that Israel remains committed to the ceasefire framework and expects Hamas to uphold its side of the agreement, the Hebrew TV outlet added.
In addition to a ceasefire and partial Israeli withdrawal, the agreement obligated Hamas to release all living hostages, which it did last week, as well as the bodies of all dead hostages.
The terror group has returned some of the bodies and claims it cannot locate the others. Israel has maintained that Hamas knows where more of the bodies are. As part of the deal, Israel also released 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and some 1,700 security detainees.
In a highly rare occurrence, Witkoff and Kushner also met with two IDF major generals on Monday, according to Channel 12. The two envoys reportedly sat down with the head of the IDF’s Technological Division and the head of Military Intelligence to assess Israel’s efforts to advance Trump’s peace framework.
During the meetings, participants discussed “the entire mechanism for dismantling and demilitarizing postwar Gaza,” and “made it clear that they want to ensure the IDF is making all the preparations necessary to carry out the second phase of the agreement,” according to the report.
The meetings took place with authorization from the political echelon, the network noted.
