Donald Trump has given Hamas an ultimatum of “three or four days” to respond to his proposed peace and reconstruction plan in Gaza, warning the militant group would “pay in hell” if it rejects the deal, as the Israeli offensive continued, inflicting further civilian casualties.
Trump’s proposal was announced in a joint press conference in Washington with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and seeks a definitive end to the relentless two-year-long war. At least 31 Palestinians were killed across Gaza on Tuesday, local hospitals said.
Asked how long Hamas had to respond, Trump said on Tuesday: “We’re going to do about three or four days.” He later warned that Hamas would face severe consequences if they refused.
“We have one signature that we need, and that signature will pay in hell if they don’t sign,” Trump told US generals and admirals gathered at a military base in Quantico, Virginia. The president has already made clear that he would support Israel continuing the war if Hamas rejects the proposal, or reneges on the deal at any stage.
During Monday’s press conference in Washington, Netanyahu told Trump that “if Hamas rejects your plan … or if they supposedly accept it and then basically do everything to counter it, then Israel will finish the job by itself”. Trump said Israel would have his “full backing” in such circumstances.
In Israel, media and politicians broadly welcomed Netanyahu’s announcement that he supported the 20-point plan, which meets many of Israel’s principal demands.
The plan calls for the disarmament of Hamas and bans it from any future political role in Gaza, which would be run by a technocratic transitional authority headed by Trump himself. It requires the militant Islamist organisation to release the 48 Israeli hostages it still holds – of whom fewer than half are thought still to be alive – within 72 hours of a ceasefire coming into effect, but offers the gradual withdrawal of Israeli military forces to a buffer zone along the perimeter and a surge in humanitarian aid, desperately needed by the 2.3 million inhabitants of the devastated territory.
Gaza would then be run by a postwar transitional authority staffed by apolitical technocrats but headed by Trump himself.
In a video statement posted on his Telegram channel after his joint press conference with Trump, Netanyahu stressed that the Israeli military would stay in most of Gaza, and that he had not agreed to a Palestinian state during his talks with the US president. “We will recover all our hostages, alive and well, while the [Israeli military] will remain in most of the Gaza Strip,” he said.
Hamas has not issued its response, with its officials only saying they are reviewing the proposal, which will be discussed internally and with allied Palestinian armed factions.
A Hamas source told Agence France-Presse that the group had “begun a series of consultations within its political and military leaderships, both inside Palestine and abroad”, which would “take several days due to the complexities of communication among leadership members and movements”.
The proposal requires Israel to release almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences.
Turkey, Egypt and Qatar have backed the plan and may be able to put pressure on Hamas, analysts said. A Qatari official said Qatar would be meeting Hamas and Turkey on Tuesday to discuss the plan.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises partial authority over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank but could eventually take on some kind of a role in a postwar Gaza government, welcomed Trump’s “sincere and determined efforts”.
However, Palestinian factions allied with Hamas appeared to reject the plan initially, according to local media reports, and a source close to Hamas told Reuters it was “completely biased to Israel” and imposed “impossible conditions” that aimed to eliminate the group.
Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally, said the plan would encourage further aggression against Palestinians. “Through this, Israel is attempting – via the United States – to impose what it could not achieve through war,” the group said in a statement.
In Israel, many commentators welcomed the proposal and those usually supportive of Netanyahu were careful to highlight last-minute concessions they said the Israeli prime minister had obtained.
Far-right ministers, however, have vowed to quit the ruling coalition if Netanyahu halts Israel’s offensive in Gaza without achieving “total victory” or securing the territory for Israeli settlement. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, said the plan was a “resounding diplomatic failure” that would “end in tears”.
Dr Ofer Guterman, an analyst at the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said Israel had changed its “paradigm” and now saw Arab states as potential partners. “Israel’s strategy had until now been based on a clash between Israel and Hamas to be handled basically through a military effort,” he said.
Foreign leaders, painfully aware of the failure of multiple previous ceasefire efforts, rushed to offer support on Tuesday.
Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Trump’s plan was the “best chance for ending the war” while the French president, Emmanuel Macron, welcomed the US president’s “commitment to ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of all hostages”. Moscow also backed the proposal.
Pakistan, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt on Tuesday issued a joint statement supporting Trump’s plan, and saying they were ready to work constructively with the US and others to secure peace.
The plan would in effect place Gaza under international control, deploy an international security force, likely composed of Arab or Muslim troops supplied by a regional power, to keep order and install a “board of peace”, headed by Trump and possibly including the former British prime minister Tony Blair, to oversee the administration and reconstruction.
The international security force would also train Palestinian police to take over law enforcement.
In Gaza, Israeli tanks advanced further into Gaza City amid intensive bombardment of residential districts there, while al-Awda hospital said Israeli troops opened fire, killing 17 Palestinians and wounding 33 others while they were attempting to access humanitarian aid in Netzarim, the Israeli-controlled corridor that bisects northern and southern Gaza.
An Israeli strike later in the day killed four people in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, the hospital said. Israeli forces also hit two tents housing displaced Palestinian families in Muwasi, the crowded coastal area.
One of the strikes killed seven people, including four women and a child, who had fled from Gaza City earlier this month to escape Israel’s intensifying offensive there, al-Aqsa hospital said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the shooting or strikes. It said in a statement that over the past 24 hours, its troops killed several armed militants and struck more than 160 targets, including weapons storage facilities and observation posts.
Deaths caused by hunger and malnutrition in Gaza have increased to 453, including 150 children, health authorities say. Famine was declared in parts of the territory last month.
The war began after Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that killed 1,219 people, mostly civilians, and in which more than 250 hostages were taken.
Israel’s offensive has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed 66,055 Palestinians, also mostly civilians. More than 160,000 are thought to have been injured.
