WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that Hamas will disarm pursuant to his 20-point peace plan or “we will disarm them.”
“Well, they’re going to disarm because they said they were going to disarm, and if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them,” Trump told journalists while hosting Argentine President Javier Milei at the White House.
“I don’t have to explain that to you, but if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them. They know I’m not playing games. OK?”
Trump also admitted the Gaza-based terrorist group “misrepresented” how many dead hostages’ bodies they had in their possession after just four were handed over on Monday.
“If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently, but they will disarm. You understand me,” Trump said ahead of a bilateral Cabinet Room lunch.
“I spoke to Hamas, and I said, ‘You’re going to disarm, right?’ ‘Yes, sir, we’re going to disarm.’ That’s what they told me. They will disarm or we will disarm them. Got it?”
The president later clarified he spoke to Hamas through his emissaries. Trump previously used threats of force to cow Hamas, first into releasing American hostages and then agreeing to the tentative peace deal. During the months of public negotiation, the president never directly spelled out what the US would do if Hamas refused his demands.
Trump’s tough talk came mere hours after he returned from a trip to Israel and Egypt celebrating the cease-fire that he brokered between the Jewish state and the terrorist group after two years of war.
The initial peace agreement featured Hamas’ release of 20 Israeli captives in exchange for a mass-release of hundreds of Palestinian inmates and the first of three planned Israeli troop pullbacks.
Although the peace plan was celebrated Monday by world leaders gathered in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, many points remain undecided, including the possible stages of disarmament by Hamas, the composition of an international peacekeeping force and the leadership of a transitional Gaza government.
Hamas immediately used to Israeli pullback to launch attacks to capture rival militia leaders it described as collaborators and publicly executed eight men by firing squad.
Under the peace plan, Trump would chair a so-called “Board of Peace” that would supervise the interim Gaza leadership.
The 2 million-person territory, meanwhile, would become a special economic zone and undergo massive Arab-financed reconstruction.
