President Donald Trump on Monday urged Israel to cancel its ceasefire deal with Hamas and “let all hell break out” if Hamas does not return hostages still being held in Gaza by noon on Saturday.
Earlier Monday, Hamas threatened to postpone the next hostage release scheduled to take place on Saturday “until further notice,” accusing Israel of breaking the ceasefire deal.
“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock – I think it’s an appropriate time – I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office after signing executive actions.
“I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday, and if they’re not returned – all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two. Saturday at 12 o’clock, and after that, I would say, all hell is going to break out.”
Pressed on what “all hell” might entail in Gaza, Trump said, “You’ll find out, and they’ll find out — Hamas will find out what I mean.”
“I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it, but from myself, Saturday at 12 o’clock, and if they’re not – they’re not here, all hell is going to break out,” he added.
Trump expressed skepticism that many hostages remain alive to release, telling reporters, “I think a lot of the hostages are dead.”
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, was involved in negotiating the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which was secured in the waning days of President Joe Biden’s administration. But since taking office, Trump has suggested he wasn’t sure the ceasefire would hold. His plan to permanently displace Palestinians from Gaza and for the United States to “own” the Strip has injected yet more uncertainty into the process.
He said explicitly in an interview this weekend that Palestinians would not have a right to return to Gaza under his plan to take US ownership of the strip and rebuild it.
“No, they wouldn’t,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News when asked whether the Palestinians would have a right to return. “Because they will have much better housing. Much better – in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.”
Trump’s assertion that Palestinians wouldn’t be entitled to return to Gaza is certain to deepen international opposition to the proposal, which drew outcry when he first announced it last week at a news conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Also on Monday — one day before meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House — Trump suggested that he could withhold aid from Jordan and Egypt if they do not accept new Palestinian refugees.
“Yeah, maybe, sure why not?” Trump responded in the Oval Office when asked if he would hold back American aid. “If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.”
Abdullah, along with his counterparts in Egypt and other Arab nations, has flatly rejected Trump’s plan.
Trump had already been talking about making a “deal” with Jordan and Egypt to take in more Palestinians, invoking the money America sends the two nations.
“I’m talking about starting to build and I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. We give them billions and billions of dollars a year,” Trump told Fox in the interview, which was taped on Saturday and aired on Monday.
After he first floated his idea for Gaza last week, some Trump aides sought to soften or clarify aspects of the plan. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump was proposing only a temporary relocation of Palestinians while Gaza was being rebuilt.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was traveling in Latin America when Trump revealed his idea, suggested the resettlements from Gaza would be only on an interim basis.
“What he very generously has offered is the ability of the United States to go in and help with debris removal, help with munitions removal, help with reconstruction — the rebuilding of homes and businesses and things of this nature, so that then people can move back in,” Rubio said last week.
Yet Trump himself, in comments afterward, did anything but retreat. He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that he viewed the war-torn region as a “big real estate site.”
“I think that it’s a big mistake to allow people — the Palestinians, or the people living in Gaza — to go back yet another time, and we don’t want Hamas going back. And think of it as a big real estate site, and the United States is going to own it and we’ll slowly – very slowly, we’re in no rush – develop it. We’re going to bring stability to the Middle East soon,” Trump told reporters as he traveled to the Super Bowl.
He added during his interview on Fox — taped on Saturday but aired Monday morning — that it would take years before anyone could consider living in Gaza given the destruction of the war.
Trump told Fox his plan was to “own” Gaza.
“We’ll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is and in the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land,” he said.
When Trump unveiled his plan last week, it caught several top administration officials by surprise. While the president had been discussing an initiative to take control of Gaza and rebuild it for several days, he hadn’t signaled his intention to make the plans public.
Afterward, some of his aides suggested the president was hoping to spur action by regional nations, which in his view hadn’t offered their own ideas on what to do with Gaza.
“Come to the table with your plan if you don’t like his plan,” Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” suggesting that the White House has received “all kinds of outreach” since Trump’s comments earlier this week.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
