Trump says US will investigate Israel's assassination of senior Hamas official as ceasefire violation Submitted by Sean Mathews on Mon, 12/15/2025 - 21:43 The Gaza stabilization force is already operating 'in a form,' Trump said, without providing specifics U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony for the presentation of the Mexican Border Defense Medal in the Oval Office of the White House on December 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/AFP) Off The US is examining whether Israel violated a Gaza ceasefire by assassinating a senior Hamas official, President Donald Trump said on Monday. Raad Saad was killed alongside three others on Saturday when his car was targeted near al-Nabulsi square in western Gaza City, according to Israeli media reports. Saad was a senior member of Hamas’s armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. He was said to be second in rank only to the group's latest military chief, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, according to Reuters. Israel has repeatedly violated a ceasefire that was signed in October and guaranteed by Egypt, Qatar and the US. At least 300 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in what Gaza’s Government Media Office says have been at least 738 violations. Israel has drastically restricted the amount of aid and medical supplies that can enter Gaza and has prevented the reopening of the enclave’s Rafah border crossing to Egypt. The Trump administration has been generally quiet on these violations in public. The assassination of Saad however could complicate the Trump administration’s plans to move the ceasefire forward. Middle East Eye reported in October that US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met senior Hamas officials, including Khalil al-Hayya, in Egypt 's Sharm el-Sheikh resort and personally guaranteed an end to the war as an assurance to Hamas’s senior leaders. When given the opportunity to address his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump downplayed reports in Israeli media that he was angry with his counterpart. “Israel and I have gotten along very well. My relationship with Bibi Netanyahu  has been obviously a very good one,” Trump told reporters in the White House. The Trump administration has dispatched allies of Jared Kushner to Tel Aviv to work on a plan that would cement Gaza’s division in half, by building so-called "Alternate Safe Communities” in the Israeli occupied portion of Gaza. Israel has imposed a full-blockade of the enclave, while its troops physically occupy around 50 percent of Gaza’s landmass. The plans to divide Gaza have unnerved Arab states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Egypt, and with Turkey. Trump needs their political, economic and manpower support to deploy an international stabilization force to Gaza. The UN Security Council approved a mandate for the force in November but it has yet to deploy. US officials have said that they expect it to be ready in 2026, but Trump said the force was already operating. MEE spoke with 3 Western and Arab officials on Monday, along with analysts. No one was aware of the force operating. "I think that, in a form, it's already running," Trump said. ”More and more countries are coming into it. They're already in but they'll send any number of troops that I ask them to send." Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0