Trump threatens to ‘violently’ disarm Hamas if it chooses not to
US President Donald Trump has said Hamas assured United States mediators it would disarm — and has warned that if it didn’t do so, the US would.
“If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump said at a White House press conference.
“I spoke to Hamas and I said, ‘You’re going to disarm, right?’ ‘Yes sir, we’re going to disarm,’ that’s what they told me. They will disarm or we will disarm them.”
Israel has demanded that Gaza be demilitarised and that Hamas hand over its weapons. The group’s leaders, however, have been ambivalent about the issue.
Trump appears to back Hamas’s crackdown on Gaza gangs
Despite stressing the group must disarm, the US president says he does not object to Hamas’s crackdown on gang members in Gaza.
There have been reports that Hamas has clashed with gangs accused of collaborating with Israel throughout Gaza after the ceasefire.
“They did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad, very, very bad gangs,” Trump told reporters. “And they did take them out, and they killed a number of gang members. And that didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you. That’s OK.”
Will Hamas disarm as part of the Gaza peace deal?
Hamas has been ambivalent about whether it would disarm. Last week, senior Hamas figure Mousa Abu Marzouk told US outlet Drop Site News those demanding the group disarm needed “to lower their expectations a lot in this regard”.
Abu Marzouk added a solid peace agreement in which Hamas pledged not to use its weapons would be more effective than attempting outright disarmament. Hamas has previously said disarming is a “red line”.
In the run up to the ceasefire, Hamas said it would lay down its arms if its main demand for a Palestinian state was fulfilled.
However, Hugh Lovatt, an Israel-Palestine expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, has told Al Jazeera while Hamas has taken a strong public stance on the issue, privately it has been more willing to engage.
“When it comes to disarmament, this is where you have seen the biggest shift in Hamas’s position,” Lovatt said. “[Hamas officials] have told interlocutors in private that the group may be open to a process decommissioning its offensive weapons.”
The IRA pledged to store its weapons when a peace deal was reached, and hang on to them for another 7 years as guarantee.
Trump’s Hamas disarmament threat ‘rings hollow’
Aaron David Miller – a veteran US diplomat who served as a senior adviser on Arab–Israeli negotiations – has reacted to Trump’s threat to disarm Hamas.
Miller, now an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, echoed a widely held view among security experts that forcefully disarming or eradicating the armed group from Gaza is unrealistic.
“Israel spent two years in intensive combat operations and didn’t come close. Trump’s threats ring hollow. What’s he going to do – deploy 50,000 US troops to occupy Gaza and clear, hold, build?”
Israel spent two years in intensive combat ops and didn’t come close. Trump’s threats ring hollow. What is he going to do- deploy 50,000 US troops to occupy Gaza and clear, hold, build? https://t.co/w4doitBmif
— Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) October 14, 2025
