Donald Trump gives his verdict on whether the Gaza ceasefire will hold

Donald Trump, the US President, has shared his thoughts about the Gaza ceasefire, which appeared to be broken on Friday despite the initial peace agreement

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Donald Trump^[1] expressed his optimism the Gaza^[2] ceasefire will last – despite it appearing to be broken already.

The US President, 79, was asked about the situation in Gaza hours after images online seemed to show missiles being fired during the early stages of the latest ceasefire^[3]. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, the world^[4] leader said: “I think it’ll hold. Yeah, I think it’ll hold. They’re all tired of the fighting.”

Thousands of people could be seen moving north in Gaza after the ceasefire was announced yesterday and many will face scenes of destruction after Israel^[5]’s devastating two-year bombing campaign across the enclave.

Mr Trump was also optimistic about the reconstruction of Gaza during the press gathering. He said: “Gaza is going to be rebuilt, and you have some very wealthy countries, as you know, over there, and it would take a small fraction of their, their wealth to do that, but, and I think they want to do it.”

READ MORE: Putin praises Trump’s efforts on ‘complex crises’ despite Nobel Peace Prize snub^[6]READ MORE: ‘I’m at the Gaza border – an eerie calm falls as Hamas readies crucial hostage release’^[7]

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Displaced civilians returned, indeed, to a landscape of rubble and ruins in Khan Younis today. One man said: “No signs of life are left. Everything has been wiped out.”

While Mr Trump remains confident the landscape will change in Gaza, and was praised for helping secure the initial peace agreement, the politician missed out on the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday^[8].

READ MORE: White House blasts Nobel Peace Prize committee over Donald Trump snub^[9]

Our reporter Chris Hughes published a fascinating first-person account from the Gaza border yesterday.^[10] Our journalist wrote: “As the guns fell silent across Gaza^[11] an eerie peace marked the enclave finally entering an uneasy and tense ceasefire^[12].

“Thousands of Palestinians^[13] are making the long walk back to homes in stricken northern Gaza as peace fell upon the blighted territory. Hamas now has until midday Monday (10am BST) to hand over 48 hostages^[14], 20 of whom are believed still to be alive but in an unknown condition. Israel^[15] will begin handing over hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, eventually releasing almost 2,000, including 250 life sentence servers.

“As we viewed the Strip on Friday, from within a mile of the border, it was the first time we had seen an absence of black and grey plumes of smoke there. Israeli^[16] troops are said to have pulled back to agreed lines^[17] as part of US President Donald Trump^[18]’s 20 point peace plan, which will end Hamas’s grip on Gaza.

“For now the skies are unusually clear and Palestinians inside the Strip can breathe and celebrate a cessation in fighting, perhaps venture to see what remains of their homes if anything.”