US President Donald Trump threatens “to eradicate Hamas if they’re not good” after Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in an attack on Sunday.

    The bodies of 57 Palestinians are brought to hospitals across the war-ravaged enclave over the last 24 hours after a wave of air strikes by Israel’s military threatened the 10-day truce.

    Senior American officials Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel as the US tries to keep the precarious ceasefire on track.

    Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 68,216 people and wounded 170,361 since October 2023. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks and about 200 taken captive.

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.”

Netanyahu caught between Israeli public ‘sick of war’ and desire to destroy Hamas

    Disarming Hamas will be crucial in securing the support of many regional countries for the US-backed peace plan in Gaza, and to prevent Israel from being tempted to restart the war now that the live captives have been returned, Dan Perry, Tel Aviv-based former regional editor of The Associated Press news agency, has told Al Jazeera.

    “[Benjamin Netanyahu] does not want to go back to war because the Israeli public is sick of the war and he has elections coming up not so long from now,” he said.

    “So the previous calculation – where everyone suspected he was prolonging the war to preserve his government that is dependent on far-right fanatics who want the war, but are a small minority in the country – flips around when elections are imminent.”

    He added: “But the dissonance is that [Israelis] are also having trouble letting go of the idea that they cannot have Hamas across the border living to fight another day and threatening them again.”

JD Vance on Gaza ceasefire: ‘There’s going to be fits and starts’

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with top US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner after dozens of Palestinians in Gaza were killed and the fragile US-brokered ceasefire teetered on the brink of collapse.

    “Prime Minister Netanyahu met earlier today with special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the developments and updates in the region,” Shosh Bedrosian, spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office, told journalists.

    US Vice President JD Vance and his wife are due to visit Israel “for a few days and will be meeting with the prime minister”, she added.

    On Sunday, Vance did not mention the Israeli attacks that killed more than 40 people in Gaza when speaking to reporters. He did say there are about 40 different “Hamas cells” and no security infrastructure yet in place to confirm the group’s disarmament.

    Regarding the Gaza ceasefire, he said “there’s going to be fits and starts.”