Free all hostages by Saturday or will end truce: Trump to Hamas

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Hamas should release all hostages held by the militant group in Gaza by midday Saturday or he would propose canceling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and “let hell break out.”

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Trump cautioned that Israel might want to override him on the issue and said he might speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But in a wide-ranging session with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump expressed frustration with the condition of the last group of hostages freed by Hamas and by the announcement by the militant group that it would halt further releases.

“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 noon, I think it’s an appropriate time. I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday,” Trump said.

He said he wanted the hostages released en masse, instead of a few at a time. “We want ‘em all back.”

Trump also said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if they don’t take Palestinian refugees being relocated from Gaza. He is to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday.

Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump said: “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing.”

“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he said, adding it would take years for Gaza to be habitable again.

Trump’s suggestion of Palestinian displacement has been repeatedly rejected by Gaza residents and Arab states, and labeled by rights advocates and the United Nations as a proposal of ethnic cleansing.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump’s statement that Palestinians would not be able to return to Gaza was “irresponsible.”

“We affirm that such plans are capable of igniting the region,” he told international media on Monday.

Netanyahu, who praised the proposal, suggested Palestinians would be allowed to return. “They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” he said the day after Trump’s announcement.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will depart later this week for his first visit to West Asia, said on Thursday that Palestinians would have to “live somewhere else in the interim,” during reconstruction, although he declined to rule out their permanent displacement.