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WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday as Hamas must “be good” or “be eradicated” — as his team sought to salvage the cease-fire he negotiated between the terrorist group and Israel.
“They’re violent people. Hamas has been very violent, but they don’t have the backing of Iran anymore,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“They don’t have the backing of really anybody anymore. They have to be good, and if they’re not good, they’ll be eradicated.”
Trump made the threat as his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner hold meetings in Israel with regional leaders to keep Trump’s 20-point peace deal on track.
Witkoff and Kushner’s meetings Monday included a sit-down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who halted entry into the region Sunday after two Israeli soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military launched retaliatory airstrikes that Hamas said killed 26.
Trump’s team is attempting to keep the peace in the region after the surprise diplomatic breakthrough coaxed by Witkoff and Kushner earlier in the month.
Vice President JD Vance is expected to land in Israel on Tuesday to add additional pressure to keep Trump’s 20-point peace plan on track.
Just last Monday, Hamas released all 20 living Israeli hostages following the cessation of fighting — and Trump visited both Israel and Egypt to celebrate the landmark agreement.
So far, US officials have tried to retain progress — Trump, by threatening Hamas, and his top emissaries by smoothing over alleged violations of peace terms.
As the slow rate of Hamas returning dead hostages’ bodies embroiled Israeli society last week, US officials announced that Turkish earthquake recovery teams would work with Israeli intelligence to help find remains and Witkoff said at the US Holocaust Museum he was “confident” they would all be returned.
Witkoff and Kushner routinely frame the peace agreement as a long-term diplomatic coup for Israel and predict dramatic expansion of the Abraham Accords, in which four Arab countries established diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in Trump’s first term.
Major aspects of the peace process remain unsettled, including the terms of Hamas disarming and the transfer of power to a yet-to-be-identified transitional Palestinian government.
US officials have said that Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Indonesia have offered peacekeeping forces for a proposed stabilization force and that others, including Azerbaijan, have expressed interest.
Trump has described oil- and gas-rich Arab neighbors as willing to bankroll the ensuing rebuilding of the 2 million-person coast strip.
English (US)