Hamas will have ‘hell to pay’ if it fails to disarm, Trump warns after Netanyahu meeting | Benjamin Netanyahu

Donald Trump has warned that Hamas will have “hell to pay” if it fails to disarm while offering full-throated support to Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting with the Israeli prime minister in Florida.

In a bravura display of mutual admiration, Netanyahu announced that the US president would be awarded the Israel prize, the country’s highest civilian honour, which since its inception in the 1950s has never before been given to a non-Israeli person.

The trip by Netanyahu to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence came amid a new push by officials in Washington to force concessions from Israel to allow progress towards the second phase of a Gaza peace plan, which in October halted the devastating two-year-long war.

Asked if he and Netanyahu had discussed Israel pulling back troops before Hamas fully disarmed, Trump told reporters: “If they don’t disarm as they agreed to do – they agreed to it – then there’ll be hell to pay for them and we don’t want that, we’re not looking for that. But they have to disarm within a fairly short period of time.”

He described the question of Israel withdrawing its forces as “a separate subject”, adding only: “We’ll talk about that.”

Last week the US news outlet Axios reported that the Trump administration wanted to announce the Palestinian technocratic government for Gaza and the ISF as soon as possible and that senior Trump officials were growing exasperated “as Netanyahu has taken steps to undermine the fragile ceasefire and stall the peace process”.

But Trump himself appeared to show no such qualms after Monday’s meeting. He said he was “not concerned about anything that Israel is doing” and “Israel has lived up to the plan, 100%”.

He repeatedly pointed the finger at Hamas, saying “it’ll be horrible for them” if they failed to disarm. “It’s going to be really, really bad for them, and I don’t want that to happen. But they made an agreement that they were going to disarm. And you couldn’t blame Israel,” he said.

Trump claimed that other countries that supported the peace deal would “go in and wipe out Hamas” if it fails to hold up its end of the bargain.

The two leaders held a lunch meeting inside Mar-a-Lago along with their delegations. Netanyahu was expected to tell Trump that Hamas must return the remains of the last Israeli hostage left in Gaza before the next stages of the stalled ceasefire can be implemented, Israeli officials and analysts said.

Speaking to reporters before the meeting, Trump falsely said “just about” every hostage was released because of him and his team, whereas “none” were released during the Joe Biden administration. In fact, Hamas released a total of 138 hostages as a result of deals that Biden’s administration helped broker, according to the Snopes factchecking site.

The family of the last person whose remains have not been returned, Ran Gvili, has joined the Israeli prime minister’s visiting entourage and will meet officials in Washington later this week.

An Israeli official in Netanyahu’s circle told Reuters that the prime minister would demand that Hamas return the remains of all hostages in Gaza, as required under the ceasefire deal, before moving to the next stages of Trump’s plan.

A second phase of the peace plan calls for an interim authority made up of non-aligned Palestinian technocrats to govern the Palestinian territory, and an international stabilisation force (ISF) of thousands of troops to be deployed. Israel has significant concerns about both.

Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer, was badly wounded and then abducted during the October 2023 Hamas raid into Israel that triggered the conflict. It is unclear if he died of his wounds during the raid or in Gaza. Hundreds gathered on Saturday night in Tel Aviv to demand that Israel makes no concession to advance the ceasefire deal until his remains are returned.

Lianne Pollak-David, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and peace negotiator in the prime minister’s office, said the failure to return the remains of Gvili was a serious issue. “Netanyahu and the Israelis as a people are simply not going to accept this,” she said.

Hamas has freed 20 living hostages and returned the bodies of 27 dead hostages since October and some observers see the insistence on Gvili’s remains being returned as a delaying tactic to allow Israel’s military forces to remain in the 53% of Gaza they currently control.

Daniel Levy, a UK-based analyst and former Israeli peace negotiator, said Netanyahu had no intention of withdrawing further from Gaza or allowing any international force that would deter Israeli military action.

“He feels he has a number of cards to play yet and the remains of Gvili is the easiest one to play now but there are others,” Levy said.

Hamas retains large quantities of small arms but only a fraction of the heavy weapons that enabled its surprise attack into southern Israel in 2023, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 abducted.

More than 70,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the ensuing Israeli offensive and vast swathes of Gaza reduced to ruins. About 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the October ceasefire.

In recent weeks, Hamas has successfully established its authority over the parts of Gaza it controls with a series of executions, raids and beatings targeting rival power brokers, collaborators with Israel and criminal gangs. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is said to now live in the Hamas-controlled zone.

The Islamist militant organisation has proposed some solutions to allow some of its weapons to be put into storage but has refused to accept full disarmament.

For Netanyahu, who faces an election within 10 months, the prospect of Iran repairing the damage inflicted on its nuclear programme in its short war with Israel and the US this summer and building up its ballistic missile capabilities is a priority.

Trump had previously insisted that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “completely and fully obliterated”. But on Monday he said: “I hope they’re not trying to build up again because, if they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.”

The president added: “Iran may be behaving badly. It hasn’t been confirmed. But if it’s confirmed, look, they know the consequences will be very powerful, maybe more powerful than the last time.” Pressed for evidence, he said: “This is just what we hear, but usually where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

The Israeli prime minister may be hoping for a political boost from his latest meeting with Trump, whom he again praised as Israel’s greatest friend. Netanyahu said: “We decided to break a convention – or create a new one – and that is to award the Israel prize, which in almost our 80 years we’ve never awarded it to a non-Israeli, and we’re going to award it this year to President Trump … for his tremendous contributions to Israel and the Jewish people.”

It was a second consolation prize for Trump, who missed out on this year’s Nobel peace prize but received a Fifa peace prize – dismissed by critics as a cynical ploy by world football’s governing body to curry favour.

As if returning the compliment, Trump claimed he had spoken to the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, who told him that a pardon for Netanyahu in his long-running corruption trial was “on its way”. Trump said: “He’s a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?”

Asked about Trump’s remarks, Herzog’s office said the Israeli president had not had any conversations with Trump since a pardon request was submitted several weeks ago, Reuters reported.