Trump says ceasefire in Gaza possible within 'next week'

President Donald Trump on Friday said he expects a ceasefire in the war in Gaza to be reached within a week.

Speaking from the Oval Office during the signing of a peace accord between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, Mr Trump said he had earlier been speaking with people involved in reaching a truce in the 20-month-old Israel-Gaza war.

“We think within the next week, we're going to get a ceasefire,” he said.

He added that the US was supplying money and food to the war-ravaged coastal enclave.

“We're involved because people are dying and I look at those crowds of people that have no food, no anything, and we're the ones that are getting it there,” he said.

Mr Trump's comments follow months of stalled efforts to bring an end to the war in Gaza that ignited on October 7, 2023, after Iran-backed Hamas led attacks on Israeli communities, killing about 1,400 people and abducting around 240.

It also comes days after the Trump administration conducted strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.

At least 54,084 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's strikes and ground offensive since the start of the war, and much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble.

A brief ceasefire that was reached in January – a day before Mr Trump took office – collapsed in March.

Israel moved to block the entry of food aid and assistance, compounding the suffering of the approximately two million Gaza residents who are facing dire shortages.

The Trump administration advanced the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private aid group, to address the concerns over famine in the enclave.

But the group has drawn intense scrutiny after scenes of chaos and bloodshed at aid distribution sites.

Since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near four GHF aid centres while seeking food, according to local health authorities.

The GHF, backed by Israel and the US, has denied that deadly incidents have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points. They say they've handed out more than 46 million meals.

The UN and other aid groups have refused to work with the GHF, calling its distribution system a “death trap”.

“The new aid distribution system has become a killing field,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNWRA, the UN agency for Palestinian affairs.

“This abomination must end through a return to humanitarian deliveries from the UN including UNRWA,” he wrote on X.

The US State Department on Thursday said that it is providing $30 million in direct funding to the group.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Thursday published a report quoting unnamed soldiers saying they were ordered to deliberately fire live bullets at crowds near distribution centres to disperse them, even when they posed no threat.