Dr. Dan Diker and Yoni Ben Menachem
Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, Feb. 10, 2025
“It is more than reasonable to assess that the president and the prime minister’s coordination on stage two will vindicate Netanyahu’s public promise that he reiterated at the presidential summit, fulfilling the government’s original goals: removing Hamas from power, eliminating the terror threat from Gaza, and returning all the hostages.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s February 10 final warning to Hamas that all remaining Israeli hostages must be released by 12 noon on Saturday, February 15, otherwise “all hell is going to break out,” is his most specific threat to the Iran-backed terror group to date and represents a climax of numerous recent warnings. Trump’s dramatic “hell to pay” threat to Hamas, part of his overhaul plan for Gaza, has sent shock waves across the Middle East but did not come as a surprise to Israel. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been closely coordinated on an overall strategy since the Washington summit on February 4.
Trump’s statement to reporters as he signed Executive Orders in the Oval Office on Monday, February 10, also reflects that he is acutely aware of Hamas’s long-war strategy of keeping certain hostages while releasing others, employing psychological warfare to prevent implementation of the ceasefire deal’s second stage.
The president’s warning is also supported by the fact that a Hamas delegation led by Mohammad Ismail Darwish, the head of Hamas’s leadership council, met senior Iranian officials including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday, February 8 in Tehran. The IRGC has been mentoring and directing Hamas’s political, media, and psychological warfare for more than a decade. It was most influenced by former IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani, who was assassinated by a U.S. drone in 2020 at Trump’s instruction. ….SOURCE