The American president, Donald Trump, warned Hamas last night that if it does not hand over its weapons, they will be forced to hand them over “quickly” and by force.
The president also assured that the party-militia, “at the highest level, through my people,” has assured him that they will comply with the disarmament commitment.
“If they don’t hand over their weapons, we will take them away from them. How will we do it? I don’t have to explain it, but if they don’t agree to disarmament, we will disarm them. They know I’m not joking,” he responded to questions from the press during a .
“You know I’m not kidding.”
The Republican insisted that if they have to intervene to make the Palestinian Islamist group lay down its weapons, these actions “will happen quickly and perhaps with violence,” although he did not specify deadlines.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has elaborated on the same threat as his American friend: although he hopes that the implementation of the next phase of the agreement will be peaceful, he points out that President Trump’s conditions are “very clear”: Hamas must demilitarize or “all hell will break loose.” of the last few months.
“We agreed to give peace a chance,” the Likud leader said last night, insisting that, with the hostages back alive, disarmament now remains the essential challenge. “First, Hamas has to hand over the weapons. And second, we have to make sure that there are no weapons factories inside Gaza. That there is no smuggling of weapons into Gaza. That is demilitarization,” he concludes.
“Something monumental”
Trump, who returned from Egypt this morning after participating in a summit with several world leaders to ensure support for his peace plan for the Strip, also highlighted in his statements the Israelis’ compliance with the first phase of his proposal. “We did something monumental. We recovered the hostages. That was the first thing we had to do, above all, recover the hostages,” he reiterated.
The American president had already celebrated the return of the Israeli captives with a message this morning on his Truth Social network, although he warned that the remains of the deceased prisoners had not yet been delivered. “All twenty hostages have returned and are feeling as well as can be expected. A large load has been lifted, but the job is not done. The dead have not been returned, as promised! Phase two begins right now,” he said.
This past Friday the ceasefire began, and with it the beginning of the first phase of Trump’s plan for the Strip, which includes the cessation of attacks, the release of the twenty live hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops.
The agreement, accepted by Israel and Hamas, also includes the handover of all hostages who died before Monday. So far, the Islamist group has only returned eight of the 28 bodies it was holding in the Palestinian enclave, a delay that has added tensions to the pact.
If it continues, the second phase of the proposal stipulates the demilitarization of Gaza, the deployment of an international stabilization force and a reconstruction plan with the support of Arab nations.
