After just 21 hostages (16 Israelis and 5 Thai nationals) were released from Gaza in exchange for more than 500 Palestinians prisoners from Israeli prisons, the fragile ceasefire appears to be collapsing. Hamas has suspended the ceasefire deal, accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement. Israel, has similarly accused the terrorist group of violating the deal.

 

Trump administration has suggested the ceasefire should be cancelled if “all” the hostages held in Gaza are not returned by Saturday (Feb 15). The U.S. president said – “If hostages are not released, all hell is going to break out. Hamas will find out what I mean”. But Hamas released only 3 Israeli hostages, whilst the Jews state released 183 Palestinians prisoners on Saturday (Feb 8).

 

Hamas lists a series of complaints, or rather excuses, such as delaying the return of Palestinians to the north of Gaza, firing on people and failing to allow in humanitarian aid. The terrorist organization, however, was careful not to blame Trump’s policy despite the fact that the ceasefire took a turn for the worse after the U.S. president revealed his plan to take over ownership of Gaza and relocating Palestinians elsewhere.

Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire and hostage-for-prisoner release agreement only in early January 2025 after the terrorist organization lost the war. The deal, a multi-phase exchange of Israel hostages for Palestinian prisoners, would see the first phase involving the release of 33 Israelis in the first 42 days, with Israeli forces still maintaining a security buffer zone within Gaza.

 

But before a negotiation of the second phase could even begin, the writing was already on the wall that the first phase would be a trouble. For Hamas, it was forced to accept the first phase with no guarantee that phases 2 and 3 of the deal will proceed, largely because its demand to return to power was already a non-starter, let alone insisting a full withdrawal of Israeli from the entire Gaza Strip.

 

Of course, Israel was not dumb enough to allow Hamas to regroup and rearm. At the same time, it also realized that Hamas has not been fully dismantled and is still running the show, despite in a weakened state. A ceasefire, nevertheless, provided some breathing space for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pacify demonstrators who demanded the release of all the hostages.

Like it or not, Hamas was an expert in psychological warfare. After ceasefire, it quickly re-establish itself as the only power in the Gaza Strip by unleashing its forces on the ground. Of the 251 hostages taken on Oct 7, about 73 are still held in Gaza, of which 34 are confirmed to be dead by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). Obviously, the more hostages are released, the less bargaining chips Hamas has.

 

Therefore, pussyfooting was Hamas’ only tactic to prolong its power after its humiliating defeat. However, what it didn’t expect was Donald Trump, the unpredictable president who suddenly proposed to move more than two million Gazans out of the enclave and have the United States take over the territory under the pretext of rebuilding the “demolition site”.

 

When the terrorist group released Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for 183 Palestinians jailed by Israel, it deliberately provoked and humiliated Israel by parading the three hostages in frail, painfully thin condition – each holding a Hamas-issued “release certificate”. Hamas may want Israel to restart the war out of anger, hence giving it an excuse to deny the world to see other hostages in even worse condition.

While Trump’s proposal was praised as “revolutionary and creative” by Netanyahu, Hamas knew the resettlement idea would spell the end of its power in Gaza. Hence, the terrorists hope to put pressure on both Israel and the U.S. by suspending the ceasefire halfway. At least, it has divided Israel – some want Netanyahu to ensure the hostages’ safety whilst others want Hamas to be wiped out.

 

The leaderless Hamas might be overplaying its card though. Netanyahu is under pressure to bring home all the Israeli hostages, but not Trump, who repeatedly said that Palestinians should be removed from Gaza and relocated to Jordan and Egypt. Fresh from crowned as the 47th POTUS, Trump isn’t desperate as he has four years to play his game with Hamas.

 

And the U.S. president has already changed his mind as he tightens the screw on the Gazans. At first, he said the relocation was temporary. Now, Mr. Trump said the roughly two million Palestinians in Gaza would have no right to return to their homeland “because they’re going to have much better housing – in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.”

Sure, Palestinians, Arab states and even some American allies in Europe have rejected his proposal. But if Trump’s first term is any indicator, he could use his beautiful weapon – tariffs – to get what he wants. After all, he was the U.S. president who has the balls to sign an order to relocate the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – effectively recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

 

As much as Hamas believes it still has an upper hand in negotiation, its delaying tactic could backfire as it may give Trump the excuse to bulldoze his proposal even faster. As the terrorist group was wondering what it has to gain with the hostage-for-prisoner deal, the U.S. president may be led to believe there is nothing to gain with the same deal if Hamas was not interested with the agreement.

 

Even if the reconstruction of Gaza could not begin, the IDF could surely continue its previous relentless bombing if the ceasefire is cancelled as suggested by Donald Trump. Get real, any reconstruction without the blessing of Washington is futile as the Israeli forces can easily reduce it to rubble and dust. And there’s nothing the Arab, even Hamas’ sponsor Iran, can do if Netanyahu resume the war.

A small country surrounded by conflicts and saturated with refugees, Jordan cannot afford to offend the U.S. as President Trump has threatened to withhold economic aid from Jordan if it, along with Egypt, won’t accept Palestinians from Gaza. Jordan receives regular payments of at least US$1.45 billion (around 1% of the country’s GDP) each year in military and economic aid from the U.S.

 

Badass Trump has already suspended aid to Jordan, as part of a wider review into U.S. global funding. The consequences of losing U.S. aid are likely to be severe in a country where a quarter of the population live in poverty, and almost half its young people are unemployed. That explains why King Abdullah of Jordan’s has flown to Washington to meet President Trump.

 

Thanks to Trump, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has formally revoked a system which provides payments to families of Palestinians who were killed or wounded during attacks on Israelis. Known as the “martyr’s fund” by Palestinians, the scrapping of the benefits also extends for Palestinians thrown in Israeli prisons for assaults or terrorist attacks on Israelis.

The Palestinian Authority paid out a whopping US$176.8 million under the program in 2023 alone, of which the money came from the USAID funding. With Trump’s ongoing campaign to slash all foreign aid, the free flow of money from the U.S. to fund the terrorists is ending. More importantly, Trump, a businessman, described Gaza as a “huge real estate site”.

 

As far as both the U.S. and Israel are concerned, the only way to drain Hamas terrorists from its tunnels and to eliminate its existence in Gaza is to own it, take it and make sure that Hamas doesn’t come back. And that can only be done by relocating – either temporarily or permanently – all the Gazans to a so-called “safer place”. Trump’s words have already given Israel the incentive to “cleanse” Gaza Strip.

 

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February 11th, 2025 by financetwitter

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