A Bridge Too Far To Suit Terrorist Hamas

"[Hamas] paid a big price. [I'm giving them] about three to four days [to decide]."

"What we want is very simple: we want the hostages back immediately, and we want some good behaviour."

"Hamas is either going to be doing it or not, and if it's not, it's going to  bee a very sad end."

U.S. President Donald Trump 

 

"What's fundamentally different now is Hamas is going to face a level of pressure from a united, not just Arab, but Muslim world leadership that wants to see the war end and has signed on broadly to this outline of points."

Jonathan Panikoff, Atlantic Council Middle East Program

 

"This is an opening."

"A lot of the devil is in the details, but this is the most pressure I have seen [to bring the war to an end]."

Ghaith al-Omari, senior fellow, The Washington Institute 

A smoke plume billows in Gaza on September 30, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

 

Israel, stated President Trump, could be assured his "full backing to finish the job" should Hamas reject the offer. In truth an ultimatum for the hostages' release -- in full and instanter  -- and with that surrender of the terrorist group's ace cards, drop their arms and wave a white flag. The alternative is to face Israel's ongoing military punishment which has to date eliminated their top leaders and commanders, but as well Palestinian civilians whom Hamas maintains as living proof that Gazans are more than prepared to give up their lives in glorious martyrdom, faithful to Hamas and Islamism, even if they do so under forceful coercion.

 

Palestinians mourn the death of loved ones killed in Israeli strikes, outside a hospital in Gaza on October 1, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

 

The original 21-point plan, minus an expendable one to become a final 20-point plan echoes Israel's oft-repeated statement during the two-year war, that surrender of the hostages could end the devastating conflict with its civilian collateral victims no longer under orders to vacate one area of the Strip after another, facing hardships for which Hamas is entirely responsible, consequential to their violent savagery against Israeli civilians. 

 

The amnesty offer to Hamas operatives who put down their weapons and recognize Israel's right to existence, may have gone a tad too far. 

 

The world awaits Hamas's final decision, after its string of earlier rejections, once mediators Egypt and Qatar handed the proposal to the terrorist group. Even traditional allies of Hamas -- Qatar and Turkey --saw fit to recognize the proposal for its positive elements, co-signing the plan along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and a number of other Arab League nations. 

 

According to the plan's hopeful view, should the Palestinian Authority manage to reform itself in coming years, the possibility raises itself that it could end up leading to "a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people".  A salve to the PLO/Fatah/PA that has assumed great unpopularity among Israelis who have lived far too long with a West Bank administration that never stopped inciting its population to violence and hatred of Israel and committing to award recognition-of-martyrdom status in financial payments.

 

Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza on October 1, 2025. REUTERS