Washington. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had told Hamas that the militant group must disarm or be forced to do so, days after concluding his visit to the Middle East to celebrate the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"If you don't disarm, we will disarm you. And it will happen quickly and perhaps violently," Trump declared during a meeting at the White House with Argentine President Javier Milei.
Trump maintained that he had communicated the message to Hamas and that they had agreed to disarm, as stipulated in his 20-point peace proposal.
"I spoke with Hamas and said: you're going to disarm, right? Yes, sir, we're going to disarm. That's what they told me," the president asserted, later clarifying that he conveyed the message through intermediaries.
Last Monday, Hamas released the last surviving Israeli hostages from Gaza, and Israel sent buses full of Palestinian detainees home under a Trump-brokered ceasefire agreement. However, the group has not publicly committed to laying down its weapons.