Trump: ‘Pretty sure’ there’s going to be a deal, ‘the people of Israel want this to happen’

US President Donald Trump says he’s “pretty sure” there’s going to be an agreement between Israel and Hamas on his plan to end the war in Gaza, adding that the terror group has been “fine” as of late.

“I think we’re going to have a deal… They’ve been trying to have a deal with Gaza literally for centuries,” Trump tells reporters in the Oval Office.

He avoids giving a timeline for when a deal will be announced after a reporter asks him if hostages will be released Tuesday to coincide with the two-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

An Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel earlier Monday that it will take several days, possibly longer, before a deal will be reached.

Asked whether he’s been in contact with hostage families about his Gaza proposal, Trump says he has and that the relatives of captives have been elated. “They’re so happy about it. One said, ‘I can’t breathe.'”

“The people of Israel want this to happen,” he says, referencing the weekly protests in Israel attended by tens of thousands calling for a hostage deal and an end to the war, regularly pushing messages largely against those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

As for Hamas, Trump says, the group has been “fine.”

“I hope it’s going to continue that way. I think it will,” he says in a rare moment where he avoided criticizing the terror group. Trump embraced Hamas’s statement last week that accepted parts of his Gaza proposal, while asserting that additional talks were needed regarding its other parts pertaining to the post-war management of Gaza.

He reiterates that his agreement goes beyond ending the war in Gaza, extending to broader regional peace. Trump points to the support his proposal has gotten from the Arab and Muslim world.

“I spoke with President Erdogan of Turkey. He’s fantastic. He’s been pushing very hard [for a Gaza deal]… and Hamas has a lot of respect for him. They have a lot of respect for Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia,” Trump says, adding that he also spoke with the king of Jordan.

Turkey and Qatar have indeed hosted Hamas leaders at the request or acquiescence of the US and Israel, while the UAE and Saudi Arabia have outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot, so it’s unclear what respect Trump is referring to.