Even for a man prone to hyperbole, President Donald Trump soared into the stratosphere this week by heralding the announcement of his new peace plan for the Middle East as "potentially one of the great days ever in civilization." The twenty-point plan is ambitiously, if vaguely, designed to end the nearly two-year war in Gaza; bring home all the hostages, both dead and alive; create a committee to govern the territory; demilitarize Hamas; and eventually eliminate "any danger posed in the region."
Trump on Tuesday gave Hamas "three or four days" to respond to the plan he outlined this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has backed the proposal to end Israel's almost two-year-old war with the Palestinian militant group. "Accepting the plan is a disaster, rejecting it is another, there are only bitter choices here, but the plan is a Netanyahu plan articulated by Trump," a Palestinian official, familiar with Hamas' deliberations with other factions, told Reuters. "Hamas is keen to end the war and end the genocide and it will respond in the way that serves the higher interests of the Palestinian people," he said, without elaborating.