President Donald Trump threatened this Tuesday the Islamic Resistance Movement—Hamas—with the idea that if it does not hand over its weapons, as stipulated in the peace plan for Gaza, they will be forced to do so “quickly” and by force.
“If they don’t hand over their weapons, we will take them away from them. How will we do it? I don’t have to explain it, but if they don’t agree to disarmament, we will disarm them. They know I’m not playing,” Trump responded to questions from the press during a meeting at the White House with his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei.
In statements collected by the Spanish agency EFEthe Republican leader insisted that if they have to intervene for the Palestinian group to lay down its weapons, these actions “will happen quickly and perhaps with violence,” although he did not specify deadlines.
Delivery of deceased hostages
“All twenty hostages have returned and are feeling as well as can be expected. A large load has been lifted, but the job is not finished. The dead have not been returned, as promised! Phase two begins right now,” Trump ordered.
Just this Tuesday night, Hamas handed over to the Red Cross four other bodies of alleged hostages inside the Gaza Strip, which will be taken into the hands of the occupation Army, which in turn will transfer them to Israeli territory, a military statement reported.
If their identities are confirmed, there would already be eight mortal remains of hostages delivered by Hamas to Israel, and there would be 20 still in the Strip, deceased, according to Hamas, during the violent bombings on the enclave.
Support for Hamas
For their part, the clans and tribes of Gaza expressed their support this Tuesday for the actions of the “security forces” to control the “rebel groups” that act in the Strip taking advantage of the war situation, after the publication of videos showing executions in Gaza City.
In a statement published by the Sanad agency, linked to Hamas, it is stated that the Palestinian clans and tribes, meeting this Tuesday, supported actions aimed at “deterring the aggressors and ending the chaos quickly and decisively.”
The Gazan clans and tribes called on “Islamic and national factions to join forces, unify energies, create an appropriate climate and take advantage of all available resources to support the plans of the relevant authorities to control the situation and end the chaos.”
Sanad Ismail Al Thawabta, director of the information office of the Government of Gaza, in the hands of Hamas, around 70 members of these groups have surrendered, along with their weapons, “as part of the general amnesty initiative.”
In addition, the Radea Force, part of the Hamas Police in the enclave, indicated in a statement that it continues its campaign in the Gaza Strip to guarantee security and in its capital to “detain people involved in shootings, murders of displaced people and attacks on civilians.”
Israel will only allow half of the agreed humanitarian trucks to enter Gaza
The United Nations confirmed this Tuesday that Israel will only allow half of the humanitarian trucks agreed upon under the ceasefire agreement to enter the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the decision of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) not to hand over the bodies of all the kidnapped hostages.
“We continue to encourage the parties to respect the parameters of the ceasefire agreement,” said Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, at a press conference.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli military authority in charge of the Palestinian territories, reported on Friday that it would allow 600 trucks a day to pass into Gaza during the ceasefire, although the Israeli authorities have finally decided that only 300 vehicles will enter the destroyed enclave.
Cherevko has also confirmed that all crossings have remained closed during the day this Tuesday, including the one at Rafá, in the south, bordering Egypt, which is expected to reopen this Wednesday under the agreement reached last week.
Remove at least 55 million tons of debris and scrap metal
The reconstruction of the Gaza Strip will require 70 billion dollars and will require 20 billion over the next three years, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The amount of rubble in Gaza is so immense that it could completely fill New York’s Central Park to a height of 12 meters, while there are at least 55 million tons of rubble.
A program official estimated that reconstruction could stretch for several decades or even longer.
The Government Information Office in Gaza confirmed that the Israeli occupation dropped more than 200,000 tons of explosives on the territory of just 365 square kilometers.
The atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945 was equivalent to 15 thousand tons of TNT, so the Gaza Strip received just over 13 times the amount endured by the Japanese city.
