More evidence Hamas had nothing to do with Sunday's Rafah 'attack'
Trump says Hamas will be ‘eradicated’ if they breach Gaza deal
US President Donald Trump said he would give Hamas a “little chance” to honour the Gaza truce deal with Israel, but warned the Palestinian group would be “eradicated” if it fails to do so.
Hamas are going to be “very good, they’re going to behave, they’re going to be nice – and if they’re not, we’re going to go in and eradicate them if we have to. They will be eradicated, and they know that,” Trump said at a news conference at the White House alongside Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Trump said any operations against Hamas in Gaza would not directly involve US troops but that “Israel would go [back] in in two minutes if I asked them to … but we’re going to give it a little chance.”
Central Command chief ‘trying to calm tensions’ in Israel: Report
A top American commander is in Israel after a weekend of deadly violence in the Gaza Strip threatened to derail the US-brokered ceasefire with Hamas, a news report says.
The Wall Street Journal reported US Central Command Admiral Brad Cooper is “already on hand trying to calm tensions”, it quoted unnamed US officials as saying.
“Roughly 200 US troops were in Israel on Monday setting up a civil-military coordination centre to monitor the ceasefire and facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid and logistical and security assistance into Gaza,” one unidentified Pentagon official told the newspaper.
“International partners are expected to arrive to help with coordination in the coming days and weeks.”
The news report comes as senior American envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday after the deadliest day in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect on October 10.
