President Donald Trump projected optimism that outstanding issues not covered by phase one of his Gaza ceasefire agreement will be sorted out, even as he declined to take a position on an eventual Palestinian state and acknowledged Hamas may not be able to produce all the bodies of deceased hostages.
“There will be disarming, there will be pullbacks, there will be a lot of things happening,” he said, referring to arrangements that would force Hamas to give up its weapons and Israel’s military to pull back further inside Gaza.
“I think it will take place, and I think you can end up with peace in the Middle East, but we have to get our hostages back. And we weren’t going to do it at the end. We’re going to do it at the beginning,” he went on, explaining the sequencing of the plan.
Trump stopped short of saying Palestinians would be allowed to remain inside Gaza, suggesting instead his plans included rebuilding the enclave into a livable area.
“We’re going to create something where people can live. You can’t live right now in Gaza,” he said.
And he said he would go along with whatever is agreed to on a Palestinian state, declining to endorse an eventual two-state solution.
When asked about Hamas’s ability to locate all bodies of the deceased hostages, Trump conceded that some “are going to be a little bit hard to find.”