Trump Opens Up on Gaza Truce, Cautions Israel Against Annexation

 

President Donald Trump has shed new light on the Gaza ceasefire he helped broker — a deal that saw Israel’s last living hostages return home and brought an end to a year of war following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.

Speaking from the Oval Office to TIME magazine, Trump recounted what he described as the hidden turning points behind the truce, crediting a U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear sites in June for transforming the region’s balance of power.

“You couldn’t have made this deal before,” he explained. “Iran was the bully of the Middle East. Once we took the bully out, everyone came together.”

Trump described the mission as “flawless,” saying “every bomb hit its mark” and that Iran’s nuclear capacity had been “completely obliterated.”

“This was a flawless attack. We went into the nuclear and just bombed the hell out of them, and so they no longer had that nuclear threat,” he stated. “And, as you know, the Atomic Energy Commission said I was right.”

The president went on to recall personally pressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt Israel’s campaign in Gaza, warning that continued fighting would isolate the country internationally.

“You can’t fight the world,” Trump told Israel’s prime minister. “When I stopped him, everybody came together — it was amazing.”

After halting Israel’s campaign, Trump said his focus quickly shifted to the fate of the hostages.

“We got them in one swoop. You know, they wanted to do the two. And I got hundreds, but I got them over a long period of time,” he emphasized. “They’d give us five, they’d give us ten, they’d give us two, they’d give us three. And every time, it’s like a big deal. I said, ‘No more of that. You’re giving us the f—ing hostages — all of them.’”

On the political front, Trump drew a clear line against any move to annex Judea and Samaria — a stance that contrasts with his first term.

“It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries,” he insisted, warning that Israel “would lose all of its support from the United States” if it proceeded.

Asked about the Palestinian Authority, Trump portrayed Mahmoud Abbas as “reasonable” and “respected,” noting that Abbas congratulated him on the ceasefire and praised his approach as “something no other president could have done.” Still, Trump voiced skepticism about Abbas’s future role, suggesting Gaza’s next leader remains an open question.

“They don’t have a leader right now,” he observed. “Every one of those leaders has been shot and killed. It’s not a hot job.”

Turning to broader regional diplomacy, Trump predicted that Saudi Arabia would soon join the Abraham Accords, calling it “the key to a lasting peace.”

“I think we’re very close. I think Saudi Arabia is going to lead the way. We don’t have the Iran threat anymore,” he noted. “We don’t have any threats anymore. We have peace in the Middle East. And I think the Abraham Accords are going to start filling up very quickly. I actually know it.”

Throughout the interview, Trump also cast his record as a corrective to decades of failed diplomacy, accusing Presidents Obama and Biden of empowering Iran through “a stupid deal” that left the region on the brink of disaster.