The Hague (TDI): Fresh from brokering a de-escalation between Israel and Iran, US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that momentum is building toward ending Israel’s war in Gaza, more than 20 months after fighting erupted.
“Great progress is being made on Gaza,” Trump told reporters en route to a NATO summit in the Netherlands, relaying an update from his envoy Steve Witkoff that “Gaza is very close” to a truce.
The latest push involves mediator Qatar, which on Tuesday relaunched efforts for a cease-fire. A day later, Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu confirmed “intensified” contacts with Qatari and Egyptian officials, though he cautioned no formal proposal had yet been tabled.
Israel, for its part, offered only a terse statement saying, negotiations to free Israeli captives in Gaza continue “both on the battlefield and via indirect talks.”
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Trump’s remarks overlap with a newly leaked US intelligence review indicating that recent American strikes set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back only a few months.
Trump rejected that assessment, likening the strikes’ impact to the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “That ended that war. This ended the war,” he said alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in The Hague.
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Insisting Tehran’s program has been knocked off course “for decades,” the president hinted at fresh diplomacy: nuclear talks with Iran “next week,” he said, adding that both Tehran and Jerusalem are “tired, exhausted.”
“We may sign an agreement. I don’t know,” Trump remarked, suggesting the door remains open to a broader settlement even as US officials press for a Gaza cease-fire.
Farkhund Yousafzai is an Associate Editor at The Diplomatic Insight.
