Donald Trump has threatened that Hamas will be disarmed if it refuses to disarm itself. Trump made the remarks on Tuesday while hosting Argentine President Javier Milei at the White House.
On Monday, Hamas freed the last 20 living Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and Israel sent home nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees under a ceasefire deal brokered by the United States, Qatar, Egypt, and Türkiye. As of right now, Israel is refusing to pull its troops from Gaza, while Hamas is refusing to disarm, both conditions of the peace deal.
It doesn’t appear to matter to the ruler of the U.S. if Hamas accepts the conditions or not, meaning they are demands. “If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently, but they will disarm,” Trump said, responding to a reporter’s question on the matter. “But they will disarm, do you understand me?” he added, insisting that it should take place in a “reasonable period of time,” he stated, according to a report by RT.
Trump claimed that Hamas had previously agreed to disarm after communicating the directive to them via intermediaries. Trump has also made previous comments that could leave Hamas some kind of involvement in Gaza in the future. Hamas may be able to retain a limited presence in Gaza, following reports of a direct meeting between White House envoys and Hamas negotiators, which marked the highest-level discussions ever held between the two parties.
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