President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration is “very close” to reaching “peace in the Middle East” after Hamas agreed to peace talks.
Trump released a video on Truth Social, thanking key Middle East countries that helped foster the potential for serious peace talks and Hamas’s agreement to release the remaining hostages in their captivity.
“I want to thank the countries that helped me put this together: Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and so many others,” Trump said. “So many people fought so hard. This is a big day. We’ll see how it all turns out. We have to get the final word down and concrete.”
“Very importantly, I look forward to having the hostages come home to their parents and having some of the hostages, unfortunately, you know, the condition they’re in, come home, likewise to their parents, because their parents wanted them just as much as though that young man or young woman were alive,” he added.
Trump emphasized the opportunity at hand for peace in the region.
“I just want to let you know that this is a very special day–maybe unprecedented. In many ways, it is unprecedented, but thank you all, and thank you all to those great countries that helped. We were given a tremendous amount of help,” he told Americans.
“Everybody was unified in wanting this war to end and seeing peace in the Middle East, and we’re very close to achieving that. Thank you all, and everybody will be treated fairly,” he concluded.
Trump announced earlier Friday that Hamas had a 6:00 p.m. ET deadline on Sunday to accept a peace deal.
“If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas,” he wrote.
Hours later, Hamas agreed to release hostages and engage in peace talks, as Al Jazeera reported:
The Palestinian group says that, in order to end Israel’s war on Gaza and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave, it is ready to release all Israeli captives – both those who are living and dead – according to the exchange plan outlined in Trump’s proposal.
“In this context, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter into negotiations through the mediators to discuss the details of this agreement,” Hamas said in a statement shared on Telegram.
It also said it agrees to hand over the administration of Gaza to an independent body of Palestinian technocrats, “based on Palestinian national consensus and Arab and Islamic support”.
After the development, Trump told Israel to “stop the bombing of Gaza.”
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