WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday said he would approve of Israel’s military finishing off Hamas in the Gaza Strip after the terror group rejected a new US-backed cease-fire plan, saying, “I think they want to die.”
Trump said it was time for Israel to “clean it up” — and that he never expected a renewed truce anyway because Hamas has very few Israel hostages left after nearly two years of fighting.
“It was too bad. Hamas didn’t really want to make a deal. I think they want to die,” Trump said as he departed the White House for a trip to Scotland.
“It’s very, very bad. It got to be to a point where you have to finish the job,” he said.
“We’re down to the final hostages. And [the terrorists] know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically, because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal.”
In May, Trump secured the release of Edan Alexander, the last US Israeli citizen held hostage after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and started the latest war. Alexander, who grew up in Tenafly, NJ, had been serving in the Israeli military when he was captured.
On Friday, Trump also swatted at French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to symbolically recognize Palestinian statehood.
“He’s a different kind of a guy. He’s OK, he’s a team player pretty much. But here’s the good news: What he says doesn’t matter,” said the president, who has balked at recognizing the Palestinian enclave as independent and opening official diplomatic relations with it.
“His statement doesn’t carry any weight. He’s a very good guy. I like it, but that statement doesn’t carry any weight,” Trump said of Macron.
Most countries, including China, Russia, India and Mexico, recognize Palestine as a country, though it has had rival governments in Gaza and the West Bank since 2007.
Trump has proposed clearing out Gaza of its roughly 2 million occupants, who are mostly Muslim with a small Christian minority, to allow for a US-managed reconstruction project to turn the coastal strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Thus far, neighboring nations have rejected his overtures to take refugees, though.
