Trump: Hamas must release all hostages by noon Saturday or ceasefire over, IDF free to destroy Hamas once and for all

WASHINGTON — Just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just returned home — and Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi are coming to the White House for high level meetings — the tense and complicated nature of the hostage/ceasefire deal just got a whole lot more tense and more complicated.

On Sunday, U.S. President Donald J. Trump expressed immense anger at Hamas for starving and torturing Israeli hostages and making them look like Holocaust survivors.

Trump also signaled that he was by no means certain that he could remain patient while Israeli hostages are being tortured.

On Monday, Hamas reacted by declaring that it was halting the release of more Israeli hostages because of alleged Israeli violations of the ceasefire deal that the Biden and Trump teams negotiated.

That was it — Trump said he had had enough and issued an ultimatum. 

“If all the Gaza hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12pm, I would say cancel [the ceasefire], and all bets are off,” the president told reporters.

“Let hell break out,” Trump added.

“If they're not returned, all of them - not in dribs and drabs, not two, and one, and three... Saturday at 12pm, and after that... all hell is gonna break out.”

Trump is giving Israel the green light to go back to war and vanquish the terrorists of Gaza once and for all. 

He added that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagreed with that approach, fine, “Israel can override it.”

But it was crystal clear that Trump is in no mood to give Hamas any latitude.

He is vowing that Hamas must be utterly destroyed and never rule Gaza again.

Trump is also saying the U.S. will take ownership of Gaza to clear it and rebuild it better than ever.

However, Trump is simultaneously insisting that to accomplish that, Gaza’s two million Palestinian residents will have to be moved to other Arab and Muslim countries.

Trump says that it is not safe for them to remain in a “demolition zone” where there are unexploded bombs, live ammunition, weapons, and severely damaged and utterly destroyed buildings that are uninhabitable.