How can Donald Trump force Hamas to release the remaining Israeli and other nationals from captivity in Gaza?
When Trump puts a deadline on Hamas to free the hostages “by Saturday at 12pm”, he puts a deadline on himself – if Hamas won’t comply – to end the ceasefire and “let all hell break loose”.
The US President’s language adds no detail to his threat. When he says “You’ll find out and they’ll find out” what all hell breaking loose truly means, I doubt that he has a clear picture in mind.
This is Trumpian brinkmanship, pure and simple.
Hamas can concede and release the hostages or it may refuse Trump’s request, thinking it wins more by toughing it out.
Trump can take hard military, diplomatic and economic actions (“all hell”) that try to force Hamas to give up the hostages. Or maybe the President just takes a hit to his credibility, accepts that he can’t get the hostages released by his deadline and moves on to his next political focus.
Let’s look at the options available to the President and to Hamas.
If Trump wants military strike options, he has the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and a large strike group of ships and aircraft in the eastern Mediterranean, currently moving east after a port visit to a NATO naval complex in Crete, Greece.
A separate US destroyer squadron is in the area, as is the USS Oscar Austin (DDG-79), an independently deployed guided-missile warship.
The US also has two guided missile cruisers in the Red Sea and the USS Georgia (SSGN-29), a submarine equipped with 154 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles.
Trump can thank the Pentagon and Joe Biden (in that order) for maintaining such a formidable military presence right where it needs to be to keep Iran cowed and Gaza in the crosshairs. The problem is to find militarily meaningful targets in Gaza.
I would expect that the US and Israel (separately and together) will have a reasonably good picture of the locations of likely Hamas political and military centres, weapons and missile dumps.
Israel has received by now, thanks to Trump, more 2000-pound bombs that can be used very precisely.
But there are major problems. First, hostages will most likely be at the same targeted locations. Second, hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the move and could be hit in such attacks – a propaganda win for Hamas and a humanitarian disaster for the US.
Problem three: is anything left standing really worth hitting? There needs to be a military purpose beyond just making the rubble bounce.
There is declining value in unleashing military hell. I could see circumstances where the Israelis might launch small precision strikes or even special forces raids to free hostages if the intelligence information were precise enough. I struggle to believe that Trump would want to put US forces into Gaza for any reason.
Beyond Gaza the US might widen strikes to hit Iranian-backed forces or Hamas political figures.
Trump famously directed the assassination in Iraq on January 3, 2020, of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian major general “responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members”.
But Trump is a cautious commander-in-chief. Despite his bluster he will not widen a war in the region without a just cause, such as an Iranian announcement of building a nuclear weapon.
What about economic and political power? Trump will look for ways to pressure Hamas political leaders and the states sheltering them. Qatar claimed that Hamas figures had left the country in November 2024 – a proposition the US should test. Others may be in Lebanon, Iran or Turkey.
It would make sense for Washington to close any remaining gaps, confiscating Hamas assets and shutting down any international support for the terror group.
Trump has also speculated that “if they don’t agree, I would conceivably withhold aid” from Egypt and Jordan if they did not support relocating Palestinians from Gaza.
Pushing deeply reluctant Arab countries to accept Palestinians may be beyond even Trump’s salesmanship abilities and won’t yield results by Saturday.
Then there is Hamas. Bizarrely, the group’s remaining leaders will count themselves winners in the conflict. They have survived in power in Gaza, forcing Israel to negotiate with them over the hostages. They have won a major global propaganda victory.
True, this has come at the price of many Gazans killed but Hamas puts no value on its own people.
Hamas will regard Trump’s attention as a victory in its own right. Is it the President rather than the Israelis they are dealing with now over the hostages?
Getting into the mind of Hamas decision-makers is hard but its obvious they don’t think like Western policymakers or even MAGA Republicans.
If Hamas accedes to Trump’s demand to hand over the remaining hostages it will lose its key bargaining chip. The leaders become easier targets for elimination. There is no reason for Israel or the US to engage with them other than through missile co-ordinates.
To that end I think Hamas will call Trump’s bluff. It may release some hostages but not all. It will string out Trump’s deadline, calculating the President won’t bring down hell on Gaza. Let’s face it: Hamas did that to its own people years ago.
Note that the value to Hamas of the Israeli hostage bargaining chip is eroding as these people are released. Hamas needs new bargaining chips.
Where can Hamas find new sources of power and influence over Israel and the US?
Not Lebanon or Syria and probably not Iran. The answer is first in the West Bank and Israel itself. Hamas has the potential to bring further terror attacks targeting Jews.
Second, Hamas can use terrorism against the US and Western countries more widely – the so-called far enemy. Hamas has been stirring that cauldron for 16 months. I have often written in this paper about the radicalisation process that has happened on our streets since October 7, 2023. This happened throughout the West, radicalising people of the left, right and within Islam. This is the source of Hamas’s real victory over Israel and democracy.
We’ll see who is better placed to rain hell down on whom.
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