US President Donald Trump on Monday said his administration was looking into whether Israel violated the Gaza ceasefire by killing a Hamas leader on Saturday.
Earlier, two American sources told Axios that the White House had sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressing Washington’s anger over the assassination of senior Hamas official Sa’ad Ra’ad, which it described as an Israeli violation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
Sa’ad, the former deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing and one of the architects of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, was killed in an Israeli strike over the weekend.
It was previously confirmed that Jerusalem did not inform Washington of the attack in advance of the strike. Israel denied accusations it violated the ceasefire, instead asserting that Hamas broke the agreement by planning an explosive attack which wounded two soldiers.
“The killing of Ra’ad Sa’ad, an arch-terrorist who worked day in and day out to violate the agreement and renew the fighting, was carried out in response to these violations and was intended to ensure the continuation of the ceasefire,” an Israeli official told Axios.
Washington fears impact West Bank violence will have on Abraham Accords
Washington is also reportedly concerned about the rise of settler violence, fearing that attacks in the West Bank may create difficulty in cementing the long-awaited entrance of Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords.
“The US doesn’t ask Netanyahu to compromise Israel’s security. We ask him not to take steps that are perceived in the Arab world as provocations,” an American official told Axios.
Gaza Stabilization Force
US President Donald Trump on Monday said the International Stabilization Force for Gaza is already running and that more countries would be added.
"I think that, in a form, it's already running," Trump said in the Oval Office, "More and more countries are coming into it. They're already in, but they'll send any number of troops that I ask them to send."