‘Three or four days’: Trump presses Hamas on peace plan acceptance

Hamas has “three or four days” to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza, he said on Tuesday.

“All of the Arab countries are signed up. The Muslim countries are all signed up. Israel is all signed up,” the president told reporters from the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One.

“We’re just waiting for Hamas, and Hamas is either going to be doing it or not, and if it’s not, it’s going to be a very sad end,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly accepted the plan during a visit to Washington on Monday.

On Tuesday, however, a senior Hamas official told the BBC that the terrorist organization will likely reject the proposal, saying it “serves Israel’s interests” and “ignores those of the Palestinian people.”

The official said that Hamas will probably reject the plan’s demand for the terrorist group to disarm. The British public broadcaster also reported that Hamas objects to the deployment of a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF), “which it views as a new form of occupation.”

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group on Tuesday rejected the plan.

Discusions are expected to last several days

Hamas started the war when it led a mass invasion of the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 to Gaza. Forty-eight hostages remain, with 20 believed to be alive.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Tuesday that Hamas is looking at the proposal presented to it by Doha and Cairo and that Turkey was set to join mediation talks later in the day.

“Qatar and Egypt have delivered the plan to Hamas. The head of Egyptian intelligence participated yesterday in a meeting with a Hamas delegation, and the movement has promised to study it. It is still too early to respond,” Doha News quoted Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari as saying in the weekly media briefing.

Turkish state media reported that Ibrahim Kalin, director of the country’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), arrived in Doha on Tuesday for the talks.

The discussions, which also include other Palestinian factions, are expected to last several days.

'We want the hostages back immediately, and we want some good behavior'

The BBC reported that Hamas’s current military commander in Gaza, Ezz al-Din al-Haddad, is believed to be intent on continuing the fight instead of accepting the proposed plan. Israeli forces are conducting a major operation in the heart of Gaza City, one of the terrorist group’s last remaining strongholds along with the Central Camps.

“You know, with Hamas, we want it very simple. We want the hostages back immediately, and we want some good behavior,” Trump said. “And, you know, pretty, pretty simple. You don’t get simpler. Think of it. We’ve signed every country in the Middle East. This is like an impossible thing. It’s never been done before. This is more than Gaza. Gaza is mixed up, but this is—Gaza is a piece of it,” Trump said.

Should Hamas reject Trump’s proposal, the president said that Jerusalem would be given the green light to finish the job.

“I would let them go and do what they have to do. You know, we’ve killed about 25,000 Hamas. So certainly they paid a big price for October 7. And this is a whole new group. You know, they come in and they come in and they keep coming. But this is a whole different group, and their leadership has been killed three different times, so they paid a big price,” Trump said.

“We hope that they’re going to have a nice, calm life. Maybe it won’t happen, but if it does, it’ll be one of the greatest things ever to happen. We’ll have actual peace in the Middle East,” the president said.

© JNS