US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Hamas could be “taken care of very quickly”, but stressed he would rather give the terrorist organization a chance to honor the ceasefire deal.
“They’re pretty violent people, I would say, that we could put that out in two minutes. We’re giving them a chance,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
He added, “You know, they agreed that they’d be very good, very straight. They wouldn’t be killing people, and they have killed people. That wasn’t the deal we made.”
If they don’t honor the deal, they’ll be taken care of very quickly, but I’d rather not have to do that,” said Trump. “But we have total peace in the Middle East. We have levels of friendship with everybody, and countries that hated each other now love each other.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump threatened Hamas in a post he published on Truth Social.
“Numerous of our NOW GREAT ALLIES in the Middle East, and areas surrounding the Middle East, have explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm, informed me that they would welcome the opportunity, at my request, to go into GAZA with a heavy force and ‘straighten our Hamas’ if Hamas continues to act badly, in violation of their agreement with us,” wrote Trump.
“The love and spirit for the Middle East has not been seen like this in a thousand years! It is a beautiful thing to behold! I told these countries, and Israel, ‘NOT YET!’ There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL!” he added.
Vice President JD Vance, who is visiting Israel, was asked on Tuesday about Hamas’s violations of the deal and said“Our warning to Hamas is very straightforward. The terms of the 20-point plan that the President put out there are very clear. It’s that Hamas has to disarm, it’s that Hamas has to actually behave itself, and it’s that Hamas – while all the fighters can be given some sort of clemency, they’re not going to be able to kill each other and they’re not going to be able to kill their fellow Palestinians.”
He added, “If Hamas doesn’t cooperate, then as the President of the United States has said, Hamas is going to be obliterated.”
However, he refused to set a timetable for Hamas to cooperate.
While Hamas released the 20 living hostages it had been holding in accordance with Trump’s plan for Gaza, it has stalled on returning the bodies of deceased hostages and has claimed it does not know where most of the bodies are located.
