President Donald Trump said Hamas has “promised” to disarm under the current Gaza ceasefire framework but acknowledged there is no fixed deadline for when that will occur.
“They promised they would,” Trump told Fox News in an interview conducted Friday and aired in full Sunday. Pressed on when the terror group must follow through, Trump replied, “It’s not a hard timeline, but it’s a line in my own mind. At a certain point, if they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, then we’ll have to do it for them.”
Asked if that meant a U.S. intervention, Trump said Washington would not send “boots on the ground,” suggesting instead that Israel could act “as a proxy” if Hamas fails to meet its commitments.
While Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan envisions Hamas disarming as part of a broader stabilization effort, the ceasefire agreement signed earlier this month in Egypt focuses only on the IDF withdrawal, a hostage–prisoner exchange, and humanitarian aid — not on disarmament or governance.
The president also addressed reports of Hamas executions of rival factions in Gaza, calling the group “very violent people” and describing the region as “a very violent part of the world.”
In the interview, Trump defended his revised Gaza reconstruction plan, which he said now encourages Gazans to remain in the Strip rather than relocate abroad — an apparent departure from his earlier, widely criticized proposal for neighboring Egypt and Jordan to host refugees.
“The whole thing is all rubble, so it’s not too hard to top that,” Trump said. “We’d build houses… paid for by the wealthiest countries” in the region.
Trump praised Arab states that have backed his plan, singling out Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, calling him a “fantastic man” and “very smart.” He said Qatar, one of the four mediating countries, “had great courage” in supporting the agreement despite regional risks.
Asked whether he had to pressure Doha to push Hamas toward the deal, Trump replied, “I didn’t have to make too much of a case because they are very smart people.”
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)