President Donald Trump, speaking in Israel on the day that Hamas released all living Israeli hostages and Israel released Palestinian prisoners and detainees, framed the agreement he helped broker as a “historic dawn of a new Middle East.”
He told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, “This is not only the end of a war, this is the end of an age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God.”
Trump’s Oct. 13 address focused on his administration’s efforts to produce an agreement between Israel and Hamas, which included a Gaza ceasefire and the release of 20 Israeli hostages, 250 Palestinian prisoners and about 1,700 Palestinian detainees held without charges.
The future phases of the 20-point plan that could lead to a lasting peace are complicated and uncertain. After his speech, Trump flew to Egypt to sign the deal with world leaders at a summit that launched the first phase of the agreement.
Under the plan, Arab and international partners will develop a stabilization force to deploy in Gaza, while day-to-day governance would shift from Hamas to a Palestinian committee. The committee will include Palestinians and international experts, with oversight by the “Board of Peace,” chaired by Trump and including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
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Trump, the fourth U.S. president to address the Knesset, praised his handpicked negotiator, Steve Witkoff, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio while taking swipes at his Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He also called for Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced a years-long corruption case.
Here are fact-checks of some of Trump’s comments:
Says he “settled eight wars in eight months.”
The agreement signed today is widely considered a landmark moment in a decades-long conflict, and Trump was a key player. But his repeated talking point about solving eight wars is exaggerated.
Trump had a hand in ceasefires that have recently eased conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. But these were mostly incremental accords, and some leaders dispute the extent of Trump’s role.
Peace has not held in other conflicts. The U.S. was involved in a temporary peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, but violence in the region has continued, with hundreds of civilians killed since the deal’s June signing. After Trump helped broker a deal between Cambodia and Thailand, the countries have accused each other of ceasefire violations that have led to violent skirmishes.
A long-running standoff between Egypt and Ethiopia over an Ethiopian dam on the Nile remains unresolved, and it is closer to a diplomatic dispute than a military clash. In the case of Kosovo and Serbia, there is little evidence a potential war was brewing.
Trump has made notable progress by securing the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage agreement, but the deal involves multiple stages, so it will take time to see if peace holds.
People gather to greet freed Palestinian prisoners in the Gaza Strip after their release from Israeli jails under a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP)
“So we dropped 14 bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities, totally, as I said originally, obliterating them. That’s been confirmed.”
It is impossible to know whether Operation Midnight Hammer — in which the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities in June to undercut Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities — succeeded in “obliterating” those sites, because U.S. and allied intelligence is not necessarily available to the public.
More than three months after the U.S. attack on Fordo, a major underground Iranian nuclear site, it’s not clear how much damage U.S. bombs created. Officials haven’t publicly released a definitive damage assessment.
An Aug. 20 analysis by The New York Times said subsequent assessments have found an increasing likelihood that significant damage resulted from the strike. However, the Times concluded that “with so many variables — and so many unknowns — it may be difficult to ever really be certain.”
“The Iran nuclear deal turned out to be a disaster.”
Trump omits that Iran had largely complied with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in which the country agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons and allow continuous monitoring of its compliance in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. The agreement was set to expire over 10 to 25 years.
Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and did not renegotiate the agreement as he promised.
Many experts praised the pact for keeping nuclear weapons out of Tehran’s hands. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it found Iran committed no violations, aside from minor infractions that were addressed.
After dropping out of the compact, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, and Iran reduced its compliance with the deal.
People gather to watch a broadcast of Israeli hostages released from Gaza at a plaza known as hostages square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP)
Under the Obama and Biden administrations, “there was a hatred toward Israel, it was an absolute hatred.”
The two Democratic presidents had somewhat strained relationships with Netanyahu, who has often courted U.S. Republican leaders, but during their tenures, the U.S. continued to support Israeli foreign policy and its military.
Osamah Khalil, Syracuse University history professor and expert on the modern Middle East, said it’s untrue that Obama or Biden “held a personal animus toward Israel, especially Biden.”
“Indeed, both administrations oversaw expansions in U.S. military assistance and coordination with Israel,” Khalil said. “In 2016, Obama signed the largest U.S. military aid package in history.”
In 2016, the U.S. and Israel signed a 10-year, $38 billion memorandum of understanding. It cited several priorities, including updating the Israeli air fleet and maintaining the country’s missile defense system.
Military funding for Israel continued under Biden. In the two years since Oct. 7, 2023, the U.S. government spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel.
Biden ordered U.S. troops to be deployed in and around Israel and Gaza and shielded Israel at the U.N. by blocking many cease-fire resolutions, Khalil said.
Obama and Biden “did nothing with this incredible document, the Abraham Accords.”
Obama’s presidency ended years before the Abraham Accords were signed.
The 2020 agreement during Trump’s first term brought together the leaders of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. The countries agreed to peace and cooperation with Israel, establishing embassies, preventing hostilities and fostering tourism and trade.
The Biden administration tried to bring Saudi Arabia into the accord, but this effort languished after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
After the 2023 Hamas attacks, “The idea of official Israeli-Saudi relations became much harder,” said Jeremy Pressman, a University of Connecticut political science professor and expert on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Trump and fellow dignitaries pose at the Gaza International Peace Summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP)
“You walk over from Iran to Qatar, you can walk it in one second. You go boom, boom, and now you’re in Qatar.” (To reporters on Air Force One, Oct. 12.)
Qatar sits across the Persian Gulf from Iran, more than 100 miles over water at its closest point.
Driving from Qatar to Iran would take at least 24 hours, according to Google Maps, and would require passing through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. (Border crossings in this part of the world would likely add to the drive’s duration.)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi “liked me so much, he never even got to see Hillary” Clinton in 2016. “He saw her for about two seconds.” (Trump remarks in Egypt, Oct. 13.)
This is inaccurate. Trump and Hillary Clinton, as their party’s 2016 presidential nominees, both met with Sisi when he was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September 2016.
Politico reported that Sisi’s session with Clinton “lasted more than an hour.” The Clinton presidential campaign said they discussed counterterrorism, human rights, the Middle East and economic development in Egypt.
Trump met with Sisi that night.
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