US president notes ‘job is not done’ on ceasefire deal, as ‘the dead have not been returned, as promised,’ says terror group misrepresented the number of bodies it would hand over

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Hamas has told his top aides that it will disarm, and that the terror group could be dealt with “violently” if it refuses to do so. He also pressed the Palestinian terror group to follow through with its release of all the dead hostages still being held in the Strip.

“I spoke to Hamas, and I said, ‘You’re going to disarm, right?’ ‘Yes, sir. We’re going to disarm.’ — That’s what they told me. They will disarm or we will disarm them,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

He later clarified that this message, rather than in a direct conversation between the president and Hamas officials, was passed along via his “people,” apparently referring to US special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Witkoff and Kushner, with Trump’s approval, met last week in Sharm el-Sheikh with Hamas’s top negotiator Khalil al-Hayya to assure him that Washington would hold Israel accountable to the terms of the US plan for ending the war in Gaza.

The US-brokered ceasefire went into effect on Friday, and Hamas released the remaining 20 hostages believed to be alive on Monday, as per the terms of the deal. The terror group was also required to return the remains of all deceased hostages, but only handed over four on Monday. The terms of the deal gave Hamas some leeway in this regard, however.

Trump made the comments on Tuesday in response to a question on whether he can guarantee that Hamas will disarm.

“We have told them we want them to disarm, and they will disarm. And if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently, but they will disarm,” he said. “Do you understand me?… They will disarm.”

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