United States President Donald Trump has warned that he would endorse attacks on Hamas if the group continues to target gangs and suspected Israeli collaborators in Gaza, threatening to break the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian group.
“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Thursday.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he said via Truth Social.
Trump warns of attacks on Hamas if killings continue in Gaza
However, in an interaction with reporters later, Trump clarified that US forces would not be entering Gaza. “It’s not going to be us,” Trump said. “We won’t have to.”
“There are people very close, very nearby that will go in and they’ll do the trick very easily, but under our auspices,” the US president said, in a reference to Israel, without naming the country.
The threats against Hamas signal a reversal from Trump, who earlier this week suggested that he was fine with the group’s crackdown on gangs in the Palestinian territory.
“They did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad, very, very bad gangs,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “And they did take them out, and they killed a number of gang members. And that didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you. That’s OK.”
There have been clashes reported between Hamas and armed clan members in Gaza, who have been accused of looting aid and working for Israel.
After the fighting on Sunday, the Interior Ministry in Gaza issued an amnesty for gang members who did not participate in the bloodshed.
But the Gaza gangs are not the only issue on which Trump has threatened Hamas.
Under the US president’s ceasefire plan, Hamas is expected to disarm and end any role in the governance of Gaza. But it is not clear whether the group has agreed to these conditions.
On Thursday, Trump warned that if Hamas did not disarm on its own, it would be forced to do so.
“They will disarm, and if they don’t do so, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump told reporters during a meeting at the White House with Argentine President Javier Milei.
