Trump says ‘rebels’ staged deadly attack on IDF troops in Gaza, echoing Hamas claim
US President Donald Trump suggested on Sunday that the Hamas leadership was not involved in a deadly attack against IDF troops in the southern Gaza Strip, blaming it instead on “some rebels within.”
The Israel Defense Forces directly blamed Hamas for the attack, but Trump’s comment appeared to echo the assertion by the terror group that the incident occurred in an area under Israeli control, where they claim to have had no contact with their operatives for months.
“As you know, they’ve been quite rambunctious. They’ve been doing some shooting, and we think maybe the leadership isn’t involved in that,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“We want to make sure that it’s going to be very peaceful with Hamas,” he added. “It’s going to be handled toughly, but properly.”
Expressing hope that the ceasefire would hold, Trump said the US wants to ensure “that it’s going to be very peaceful with Hamas.”
Two Israeli soldiers — Maj. Yaniv Kula, 26, and Staff Sgt. Itay Yavetz — were killed and three were wounded when terror operatives launched an attack on troops in the Rafah area. The IDF blamed Hamas for the attack, calling it a “blatant” violation of the ceasefire.
Smoke billows following an Israeli strike that targeted a building in the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on October 19, 2025. (Eyad BABA / AFP)
The IDF announced the resumption of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening after the attack in the southern Gaza Strip in the morning and a subsequent wave of retaliatory Israeli strikes had threatened to shatter the fragile truce.
The military carried out strikes against 20 targets in Gaza, which the Hamas-run civil defense agency said killed 45 people, although the figures could not be verified and did not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Trump told the reporters he did not know whether the Israeli strikes were justified. “I’d have to get back to you on that,” he said.
Family and friends attend the funeral of Major Yaniv Kula at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, October 20, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Asked whether the truce was still in effect, Trump said: “Yeah, it is.”
Washington was said to have scrambled to intervene to prevent the US-brokered ceasefire from falling apart, just over a week after it came into effect on October 10.
According to the Axios outlet, US special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner spoke to Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer about the developments, and Washington requested that Jerusalem “respond proportionately but show restraint.”
White House special envoy Steve Witkoff, right, and Jared Kushner wait for the arrival of US President Donald Trump at Teterboro Airport in Teterboro, New Jersey on July 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The appearance of cracks in the ceasefire came ahead of a visit by Witkoff and Kushner to Israel on Monday to advance the ceasefire agreement, and the expected arrival of US Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday.
Vance did not mention the Israeli strikes when speaking to reporters, but said there were about 40 different cells of Hamas and no security infrastructure yet in place to confirm their disarmament.
“Some of those cells will probably honor the ceasefire. Many of those cells, as we saw some evidence of today, will not,” he said.
“Before we actually can ensure that Hamas is properly disarmed, that’s going to require … some of these Gulf Arab states, to get forces in there, to actually apply some law and order and security keeping on the ground,” he said.
US Vice President JD Vance speaks with reporters upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on October 19, 2025 (Oliver Contreras / POOL / AFP)
The ceasefire and hostage release deal, which entered into effect on October 10 and largely saw an end to fighting in Gaza and an increase in the amount of aid entering the Strip, required Hamas to release the remaining 20 living hostages and return all bodies of the 28 deceased hostages.
While Hamas released the living hostages within the first 72 hours, it has yet to hand over the bodies of 16 deceased hostages, saying that it cannot yet locate them due to the level of destruction in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has accused the terror group of lying, saying it is intentionally withholding some of the bodies.
In the second phase of the ceasefire, as detailed in Trump’s 20-point plan, Hamas will be required to disarm and cede governance of Gaza to a technocratic committee overseen by an international transitional body.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
