Trump attributes Iranian strikes to Israel-Hamas peace deal

President Donald Trump told Fox News in an exclusive interview Monday that he credits U.S. strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites with making the peace deal between Israel and Hamas possible.

Trump made the comments to Trey Yingst of Fox News in Israel after Hamas freed the remaining 20 Israeli hostages from captivity in Gaza.

“I think it really started when we took out Iran’s nuclear capability,” Trump said, referring to the June strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. “When you look at what they had, you couldn’t have made a deal like that with someone sitting there with a nuclear weapon over their head.”

Trump said other Middle Eastern countries had been “fantastic” in helping the United States negotiate the peace deal, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt.

Trump writes message to Israelis after all living hostages freed by Hamas

President Donald Trump addresses the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, October 13, 2025, in Jerusalem. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“That’s what’s amazing,” Trump said. “Everyone came together at that time. If you went back six or seven months, you would have said something like that was impossible.”

Trump added that even with his impact as US president, the deal would not have happened if the dozens of countries that make up the Middle East had not wanted it.

“They all wanted this to happen,” Trump said, “and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”

President Donald Trump poses for a photo with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before boarding Air Force One at Ben Gurion International Airport, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, near Tel Aviv, as Israeli President Isaac Herzog, left, looks on. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Yingst said Trump emphasized that the Gaza deal was just the beginning of what he hopes will become a broader movement toward peace in the Middle East.

Asked about the current state of Iran’s nuclear program, Trump responded that it was nonexistent.

“They don’t have a nuclear program,” Trump said of Iran. “It has been erased.”

President Donald Trump arrives to address the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, with Amir Ohana, Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, October 13, 2025, in Jerusalem. President Trump visited the country hours after Hamas released some of the remaining captured Israeli hostages on October 7, 2023, as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal to end the war in the Gaza Strip. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In June, the United States launched Operation Midnight Hammer, the longest large-scale B-2 bombing mission in history, striking Iranian nuclear sites with 30,000-pound bunker busting bombs.

Trump immediately proclaimed that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally destroyed,” although skeptics and opponents of the strikes expressed caution about the mission’s success before a final assessment of the damage was completed.

Trump also told Yingst that he believed Iran would be a country that “wants to return to the world of good economies.” Trump added that Iran had shown signs of being open to diplomacy and that he had since spoken to Iranian leaders, although he declined to specify which one.

“The last thing they’re going to do is go into the nuclear world again, because look what that’s done for them, and I should just do it again,” the president said of Iran and the strikes.

TRUMP ANNOUNCES ‘GOLDEN AGE OF MIDDLE EAST’ IN ADDRESS TO ISRAELI KNESSET HOURS AFTER HOSTAGES RETURN HOME

Trump arrived in Israel Monday morning to coincide with the prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas.

The 20 living Israeli hostages were released as part of a deal aimed at ending the conflict that began with the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas terrorists. Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages in southern Israel during the attack. Two years of fighting in Gaza followed, leaving tens of thousands dead.

In exchange for the still-living hostages, Israel began releasing around 2,000 Palestinian detainees, including around 250 identified as terrorists.

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Morgan Phillips of Fox News Digital and the Associated Press contributed to this report.