President Donald Trump on Friday put Hamas on what amounted to a diplomatic stopwatch, demanding the militant group accept a U.S.-backed peace package by 6 p.m. Eastern on Sunday or suffer consequences he cast as both inevitable and unparalleled. The demand—posted on his Truth Social account—set a hard deadline and threaded threats of sweeping military action through the thin hope of a negotiated end to a war that has hollowed out Gaza and left the region raw.
The terms Mr. Trump laid before Hamas are stark: disarm completely, withdraw from governing roles in Gaza, free all captives and renounce violence — promises of amnesty offered to those who comply, and the prospect of a phased Israeli pullback to follow. Administration officials and allied leaders have framed the proposal as a 20-point roadmap; its architects say it rests on support from Israel and multiple Arab capitals working through back-channel diplomacy, according to The Associated Press.
Trump did not couch his warning in the cautious diplomatic language Washington often favours. He declared in his post that many of Hamas’s remaining fighters are “encircled and confined within Gaza,” and added, “As for the rest, we know where and who you are, and you will be hunted down, and killed.” He urged non-combatant Palestinians to seek safer ground inside Gaza and proclaimed that “Fortunately for Hamas, however, they will be given one last chance!”—language that underscored the administration’s posture: an ultimatum thinly wrapped in the promise of clemency for compliance.
Then came the line intended to define the moment: “An Agreement must be reached with Hamas by Sunday Evening at SIX (6) P.M., Washington, D.C. time. […] If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas. THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.” Those words—raw, biblical in cadence, absolute in implication—convert a diplomatic timetable into an apocalyptic deadline.
What happens next is the central uncertainty, noted Politico. If Hamas accepts, the U.S. and its partners claim the deal could produce a brittle but immediate cessation of some of the war’s worst violences; if it refuses, Mr. Trump has telegraphed a punitive campaign that promises to broaden the war’s scale and deepen civilian suffering. Outside observers warn that compressing such a vast, tragic history into a three-day reckoning risks more chaos than resolution—yet for an administration that prizes theatrical decisiveness, the choice is presented as simple: accept, or be extinguished.
