WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has signaled eagerness to wrap up the war in Gaza as quickly as possible, even as the outgoing Biden administration continues its last-ditch diplomatic push for a ceasefire deal.
Earlier this week, Trump said if the hostages held by Hamas are not home by Jan. 20, 2025, the date of his inauguration, then “all hell is going to break out.”
The warning is similar to the threat he issued on social media earlier this month, where he said, “There will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.”
It’s not clear what Trump plans to do in Gaza. When asked to clarify the threat, he said, “It means it won’t be pleasant.”
Trump may deploy resources to place military pressure on Hamas, said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. However, it’s unlikely to be “significantly harsher than what the Israelis have brought to bear over the last 14 months.”
“There could be another element — which I hope that’s not the approach — to maybe squeeze some of that humanitarian aid going in,” Alkhatib told VOA.
It’s also possible that Trump’s threats are directed to Hamas members outside of Gaza and the countries that support them, and Trump might move to pressure those nations to cut off financing, Alkhatib added. Hamas is a U.S.-designated terror organization.
Hamas’ external wing may be more receptive to Washington’s pressure, particularly since its patron, Tehran, has been weakened through the loss of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Like Hamas, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy, while the Assad regime was Tehran’s stalwart ally.
Trump’s warnings send “an unmistakable message to the people in the Middle East that the U.S. wants to get this done,” said David Makovsky, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Project on the Middle East Peace Process.
This leaves Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu navigating between placating the ultraright-wing faction of his coalition — which is pushing for building settlements in and even annexing Gaza — and pleasing Trump, who wants credit for ending the war and potentially expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, Makovsky told VOA.
The 2020 agreement brokered under the first Trump administration normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, then later with Morocco.
“Trump is not into building more settlements and staying in Gaza. Trump wants, I think, a Nobel Prize for a breakthrough with Saudi Arabia,” Makovsky said. “And I don’t think those things go together.”
Analysts say that even before taking office, Trump is already shaping the calculations of combatants in the Middle East. His pick for national security adviser, Representative Mike Waltz, gave the president-elect credit for last month’s ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, brokered by the U.S. and France.
“Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump,” Waltz posted on social media. “His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated.”
US ‘hopeful’ for deal
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has pledged to spend all the time left in its waning days to try to make a deal happen. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he is “hopeful” an agreement can be reached.
“Gaza has to be translated into something different that ensures that Hamas is not in any way in charge, that Israel doesn’t have to be, and that there’s something coherent that follows that enables the governance, the security, the reconstruction of Gaza,” he said.
That goal is still out of reach, despite Washington’s renewed diplomatic push with Turkey, Egypt and Qatar.
“I don’t see a scenario in which President Biden is going to be able to really fundamentally shift the needle here,” Alkhatib said.
He added that while Hamas may be motivated to secure a deal while Biden is still in office rather than after Jan. 20 when the U.S. is likely to drive a much harder bargain, they know that any assurances provided by the Biden administration may not be fulfilled by the Trump administration.
This despite officials from both the Biden and Trump administrations saying they are working together in handling global conflicts, partly to secure the transition period that may be seen by adversaries as moments of opportunity, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
“And so, the imperative on us, both the outgoing Biden administration, the incoming Trump administration, has to be to lash up more tightly than is typical, to spend more time together than is typical, and to try to ensure we are sending a common, clear message to both friends and adversaries in the Middle East.”
The common message from the two leaders is that the U.S. wants the conflict to end. So far, the warring parties are not listening.
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