Trump minces no words when asked about maintaining ceasefire in Gaza: 'Not our war'

President Donald Trump, while signing executive actions in the Oval Office Monday evening, was asked by a reporter whether he was confident that he could maintain the ceasefire in Gaza.

"I'm not confident," said Trump. "That's not our war. It's their war."

While Trump's response, which came just hours prior to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's swearing in, further evidenced his general preference for nations to sort out their own problems, it may have also had something to do with the current pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lay waste to the remainder of Hamas.

CNN noted that the ceasefire deal has tested Netanyahu's parliamentary majority, which is already slim.

After Itamar Ben-Gvir, part of the Jewish Power Party and Netanyahu's Cabinet, resigned Sunday as national security minister over the approval of the ceasefire deal with Hamas, the government's finance minister threatened to follow suit. Such departures will weaken the prime minister's ruling coalition.

Netanyahu signaled a willingness to spike the ceasefire, making reassurances Sunday that Trump gave "full backing to Israel's right to return to fighting, if Israel comes to the conclusion that negotiations on Phase B are futile."

'It's a phenomenal location on the sea, the best weather.'

Unless such a decision is made, the second phase of the ceasefire deal, which requires that the Israeli military completely leaves Gaza, is scheduled to take place on Feb. 4.

Trump, who proved instrumental in securing the return of the first group of hostages from Hamas, signaled that Israel might be in a position to end the conflict, if resumed, noting, "I think they're very weakened on the other side. Gaza, boy — I looked at a picture of Gaza. Gaza is like a massive demolition site."

"It's got to be rebuilt in a different way," continued Trump. "It's a phenomenal location on the sea, the best weather. You know everything's good. It's like some beautiful things can be done with it."

The president indicated further that in terms of governance, "You certainly can't have the people that were there. Most of them are dead, by the way, right? Most of them are dead. But they didn’t exactly run it well. It was run viciously and badly. So you can't have that."

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