US President Donald Trump Sets Sunday Time Limit for Hamas to Accept Gazan Peace Plan
President Donald Trump has delivered a ultimatum to the Hamas organization, calling for them to approve a US-backed peace plan for Gaza or else confront severe repercussions.
Via a message on his social media platform on the end of the week, the President announced that an deal must be reached by 6 PM EST (22:00 GMT) on the coming Sunday.
This suggested agreement calls for an immediate end to conflict and the return within a short period of 20 surviving Israeli captives kept by the group—plus the remnants of individuals thought to be deceased—in return for hundreds of arrested residents.
Arab and Turkish intermediaries are believed to be encouraging the organization for a positive reply to the offer, but a prominent Hamas official has suggested that the militant group is likely to decline it.
"In case this ULTIMATE deal is not achieved, severe retaliation, as no one has before seen, will erupt against the group. WE WILL ACHIEVE STABILITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER," Trump posted in the Truth Social update.
Mediators have been in touch with the leader of Hamas's military wing in the territory, who has suggested that he does not agree to the latest US ceasefire initiative, according to information.
Sources indicate that a portion of the group's political wing in the Gulf state are open to agreeing to the plan with changes—yet have discovered their authority limited as they are without command over the detainees kept by the organization.
An additional obstacle for a number of in Hamas is that the plan demands them to release the entirety of the detainees over the first three-day period of the truce—surrendering their sole bargaining chip.
It is estimated to be 48 captives currently being detained in the Gazan area by the armed group, just 20 of whom are believed to be living.
Israel's army launched a campaign in Gaza in retaliation to the Hamas-initiated offensive on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which approximately twelve hundred civilians were killed and 251 additional individuals were captured.
At least sixty-six thousand two hundred eighty-eight people have been killed in Israeli operations in the territory since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health authority.