The US president, Donald Trump, has given Hamás on Monday. Or releases all Israeli hostages before Saturday or will cancel the agreement of Alto El Fuego and “the doors of hell will open,” he threatened in statements in the Oval Office after the Islamist movement announced that it suspends “until new notice” The release of hostages planned for this week. The passage of Hamas, that the Palestinian radical group ensures that it takes in retaliation for the “violations” of Israel del Alto El Fuego in the strip, represents the greatest crisis so far of the fragile truce of truce and exchange of prisoners between the movement and Israel achieved in January after months of negotiations.
“As far as I am concerned, if all hostages are not free for Saturday at twelve Executive orders. “If they do not come back, all of them- not enough of going little by little, two by two or three by three- for Saturday, the doors of hell will open,” he insisted. “I am talking about myself, Israel can correct myself, but as far as I am concerned, on Saturday at twelve.”
Asked if “the doors of hell” refers to Israeli reprisals, he replied that “they will discover it, and they will also discover it. Hamas will discover what I mean. ” He asked again if he ruled out the possible American involvement in case the Islamist movement breached the ultimatum, replied: “We will see what happens.”
The statements of the US president arrived hours after the Fox News chain issued the extract of an interview in which he brings more details of his plan for the future of Gaza. In it, he has flatly ruled out that the 2.3 million Palestinian residents of Gaza (he declares 1.9 million) can return to the strip if it is carried out, which he calls as “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
In the interview, the Republican answers with a blunt “No, they would not have it” to the question of the presenter Brett Baier about the right of return of the Gazaties once the long reconstruction process would conclude. Sometimes Trump has calculated that at least 10 and 15 years will be necessary to leave the strip in habitable conditions after a war in which Israeli bombs have killed more than 45,000 palestinians, destroyed infrastructure and collapsed the vast majority of The buildings.
The US president caused stupor and dismay last week when he announced by surprise, at a press conference with the Israeli prime minister Benjamín Netanyahu, his proposal to “take control” and “possess” Gaza, where his residents would be expelled for Reassure them in Egypt, Jordan and perhaps other Arab countries, without taking into account their wishes or international law, which considers forced population transfers a crime against humanity.
In those statements, the US president said that the Gazatis would not return to the strip, which he describes as “a demolition site.” According to him, the Palestinians themselves would not want to return, because they would live much better in their new homes than in a place that will be uninhabitable for years. But the next day, given the international commotion caused by the words of the Republican, the White House assured that the displacement would only be “temporary.” In other interventions, Trump was ambiguous about it. Until now.
In the extracts that Fox has disseminated, Trump declares that his plan is to build permanent settlements for the more than two million Gazati in other Arab countries in the area. There they would rise “six, seven, nine” enclaves, “beautiful communities” “much better” than what the Gazatis have known so far. The US President declares himself convinced that, once settled there, the residents would not want to leave there to return to the strip.
Meanwhile, he declares, the United States would take control of Gaza – “we would possess it,” he said – and gradually build “a real estate enclave for the future.” The president remains importance to the resounding opposition to his plan of the Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, and is convinced that he will reach an agreement with Cairo and Amán to give up territory where they build those new settlements that he plans. “We give them billions of dollars every year,” he insists, hinting that this help would become a pressure tool to tear them out.
Jordan received almost 1.7 billion dollars in American assistance in 2023, according to those of the government in Washington. Egypt obtained 1,500 million, of which more than 1,200 were military aid.
Meeting with King Abdalá II
Precisely, Trump plans to meet on Tuesday with King Abdalá II of Jordan in the White House. This Monday, its Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, received the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Badr Abdelati. In the coming weeks, as the Israeli President Isaac Herzog has advanced, the Republican could also see the Egyptian president, Abdelfatá al Sisi, and the Saudi heir prince, Mohamed Bin Bin Salmán.
The Arab countries have strongly rejected the Trump plan, which they consider to be equivalent to ethnic clean the arrival of Jewish militias first and the new Israeli army later. They also consider that any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state is dynamite and threatens stability in the Middle East. For Egypt and Jordan, the threat is existential: they already have an important population of Palestinian refugees. A new flow of hundreds of millions of people would break the delicate social and political balances, and would run the risk of creating new radicalized groups.
In addition, the president’s plan is not clear. He has spoken that Israel would give it to her, and has even mentioned that she could “buy it”, as he says he wants to do with Greenland, the Arctic Island under Danish control. But Israel cannot do that: the strip is not part of its territory, it is not under its sovereignty.
But Trump has made it clear that he is. This Sunday, in statements to journalists from the presidential plane Air Force One, in which he moved to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl, the final of the American football championship, reiterated his interest in “possessing” the territory.
“I am committed to buying and possessing Gaza. About that we rebuild it, we can give it to other states in the Middle East to raise parts of it, other people can do it, under our sponsorship. But we are committed to possessing it, take care of it, and make sure that (the Palestinian radical group) Hamas does not return to it, ”he said.
In his statements aboard the Air Force One, the US president also expressed his frustration about how Hamas fulfills his part of the agreement of Alto El Fuego and exchange of prisoners in Gaza. As Netanyahu did on Saturday after the release of three visibly malnourished Israeli hostages, Trump hinted that he is losing patience. “They seemed survivors of the Holocaust. They were in horrible conditions, in the bones, ”he said. “I don’t know how much more we will be able to endure … at some point we will lose patience.”
