United States President Donald Trump on Thursday, October 16, issued a stern warning to Hamas after a video surfaced showing a public execution in Gaza after a deal with Israel to cease the war was reached. The video, which has sparked international outrage, prompted Trump to caution the militant group that if such killings continue, the US “will have no choice but to kill Hamas.”
In a post in Truth Social, Donald Trump said, “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.”
The grim warning from Donald Trump came after he previously downplayed the internal violence in the territory since a ceasefire went into effect last week.
Trump said earlier that Hamas had taken out “a couple of gangs that were very bad” and had killed a number of gang members. “That didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you,” the US President said.
He had also threatened Hamas of allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to resume military action in Gaza if Hamas fails to honor its end of the ceasefire agreement. “Israel will return to those streets as soon as I say the word. If Israel could go in and knock the crap out of them, they’d do that,” Trump told CNN.
Crackdown and executions in Gaza
Hamas had published a video on its official channel showing the street execution of eight blindfolded and kneeling suspects, branding them “collaborators and outlaws”.
Meanwhile, a Hamas security unit has been carrying out operations against armed clans and gangs, some of which are reportedly supported by Israel
Since a ceasefire has been agreed upon by both Hamas and Israel, the Palestinian militant has launched a crackdown and execute alleged collaborators, even as US President Donald Trump vowed to disarm the group.
The footage, apparently from Monday evening, emerged as armed clashes were underway between Hamas’s various security units and armed Palestinian clans in parts of the territory, on the fifth day of a US-brokered truce between Hamas and Israel.
In the north of the territory, as Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza City, the Hamas government’s black-masked armed police have resumed street patrols.
The execution video particularly has sparked condemnation across the world with France accusing the Palestinian militant group of carrying out “summary executions” in Gaza after a ceasefire with Israel and Germany terming them as acts of terror against the population.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the war will continue until Hamas is dismantled, while Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan requires Hamas to disarm and transfer authority to an internationally supervised body. The body is yet to be established.