US says Hamas could breach ceasefire with attack on Palestinians

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The Trump administration has warned that Hamas is planning an attack on Palestinian civilians that would violate its ceasefire agreement with Israel. 

“The United States has informed the guarantor nations of the Gaza peace agreement of credible reports indicating an imminent ceasefire violation by Hamas against the people of Gaza,” the state department said on Saturday evening.

“This planned attack against Palestinian civilians would constitute a direct and grave violation of the ceasefire agreement and undermine the significant progress achieved through mediation efforts.”

Hamas agreed a deal with Israel last week to release all the remaining hostages held in Gaza, part of the first phase of the US-brokered agreement to end the devastating two-year war.

On Saturday, Hamas released what it said were the bodies of two Israelis, among 28 dead hostages it still held.

The state department did not specify the details of the planned attack. However, it said that should Hamas proceed with it, “measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire”.

Since the ceasefire was announced, Hamas has moved to reassert its control in Gaza by executing members of rival clans it accuses of collaborating with Israel and profiteering during the war.

Asked about the vigilantes this week, Trump at first said he was not bothered by them.

“They were very, very bad gangs,” he told reporters.

But later in the week he reversed course, posting a warning on Truth Social that if Hamas “continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.”

Efforts to end the war — triggered by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel, when militants killed 1,200 people and seized 250 hostages — intensified after Trump presented his plan to Arab and Muslim leaders at the UN General Assembly last month. 

Israel broke a previous ceasefire in March and renewed its offensive, which has killed more than 67,000 Gazans, according to Palestinian health officials, and caused widespread starvation.