‘Hamas knows I’m not playing games’ – Trump

Trump says Hamas will be “violently” disarmed if it refuses to abide by deal requiring it to surrender its weapons.

By World Israel News Staff

President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that if Hamas fails to abide by the terms of the new Gaza peace deal, including the requirement that the terror group disarm, military force could be used to enforce the terms of the agreement.

Speaking with reporters after Hamas returned all 20 living Israeli hostages and after Israel released nearly 2,000 jailed Arab terrorists, Trump said he was confident that the terror group would give up its weapons as required by the agreement.

“They will disarm because they said they are going to disarm,” Trump said, before quickly adding that should Hamas refuse to surrender its weapons, it would be disarmed by force.

“They will disarm. And if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them – and it’ll happen quickly and, perhaps, violently, but they will disarm,” he said.

The president added that Hamas had reiterated to him its commitment to disarm.

“I spoke to Hamas, and I said, ‘Well, 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.”

While touting the release of the living hostages, Trump noted that Hamas has so far failed to return the remains of the 28 deceased captives on schedule.

According to the terms of the deal, Hamas was obligated to return all 48 hostages – including living captives and the remains of slain hostages – within 72 hours of the beginning of the ceasefire.

“We did something monumental – we got the hostages back. That was the first thing we had to do, above all else –  get the hostages back,” he said.

“They [Hamas] misrepresented, because we were told that they had [in their possession the remains of] 24-26 dead hostages, if we can use those terms. It seems they don’t have that, because we’re talking about a much lesser number. That’s a very tough subject. I want them back.”

The 1 p.m. Monday deadline passed without the return of any dead hostages, though the remains of four people were transferred by Hamas to the International Committee of the Red Cross later on Monday.

On Wednesday, Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir announced that while three of the bodies were in fact slain hostages, the fourth was the body of a Gazan man dressed in an IDF uniform.