President Donald Trump is vowing a brutal response if Hamas does not follow through with its commitment to the ceasefire agreement.
The deal brokered by the president and signed just one week ago remains on shaky ground after violence erupted in Gaza over the weekend.
On Tuesday, Trump took to Truth Social with his latest in a series of warnings to Hamas as Vice President JD Vance arrived in Israel.
“Numerous of our NOW GREAT ALLIES in the Middle East, and areas surrounding the Middle East, have explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm, informed me that they would welcome the opportunity, at my request, to go into GAZA with a heavy force and “straighten out Hamas” if Hamas continues to act badly, in violation of their agreement with us,“ Trump wrote in a post.
He claimed the “love and spirit for the Middle East has not been seen like this in a thousand years!”
“I told these countries, and Israel, “NOT YET!” There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL!” Trump warned.
The post comes one day after Trump insisted during a meeting at the White House that Hamas was going to be “very good, they’re going to behave, they’re going to be nice.”
He warned if they are not “we’re going to go, and we’re going to eradicate them if we have to.”
“They’ll be eradicated, and they know that,” he said.
When asked who would be going into Gaza to do the eradicating, Trump clarified that it would not be the U.S. but other countries.
Last week, Israel celebrated the return of the last of the living hostages taken on October 7, 2023.
As part of the first phase of the agreement, Hamas was also suppose to return the bodies of hostages, but it has taken longer than the president had hoped.
There have also been reports of violence within Gaza as the Trump administration scrambles to keep the crumbling agreement in place.
On Sunday, Israel launched a bombardment killing at least 28 people in Gaza after a Palestinian attack killed two soldiers.
Both Israel and Hamas recommitted to the agreement this week despite spurts of violence as the U.S. envoys worked to get the plan back on track, but it remains to be seen whether the deal can hold.
While world leaders including Trump gathered in Egypt on October 13 to celebrate the first phase of the peace deal, details still needed to be worked out on the next steps of the agreement.
As part of Trump’s 20-point plan, Hamas was directed to disarm in return for amnesty as part of the path forward to rebuild Gaza. That has not happened yet.
On Tuesday, Vance landed in Israel where he is meeting with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the U.S. looks to shore up the fragile agreement.
The post Trump Threatens ‘Brutal’ Response as His Ceasefire Crumbles appeared first on The Daily Beast.
