Hamas indicates it is open to Trump Peace Plan as it faces pressure from Muslim nations

Hamas has indicated it is open to accepting President Trump's peace plan for Gaza but is asking for more time to review its conditions, Arab mediators said, as the militant group faces intensifying pressure from Muslim governments to agree to the Israel-backed proposal to end the devastating war.

- Summer Said

Palestinians saw persistent shortages of food and large parts of the enclave have been reduced to rubble by the fighting.

(AFP)

The militant group has told mediators it has reservations about some of the terms of the 20-point plan, including the stipulation that it disarm and destroy its weapons, a demand it has previously rejected. Hamas also says that releasing all 48 hostages within 72 hours, as laid out in the Trump plan, would be difficult because it has lost contact in recent weeks with some other militant groups holding a number of them, the mediators said.

Hamas officials, who met with mediators in the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday, argued that Trump's plan leaves Palestinians without a credible path to statehood and includes several loopholes that would permit Israel to resume the war. Qatar, Egypt and Turkey have urged Hamas to respond positively to the plan by Wednesday evening local time, the Arab mediators said.

Officials from the three Middle East countries met with Hamas officials a day after Trump announced the plan while standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

Trump warned then that the militant group would be wiped out unless it agreed to his peace proposal and on Tuesday said Hamas had three or four days to agree to the deal, adding that its members would "pay in hell if they don't sign."

The U.S.-designated terrorist organization is also under pressure from leaders in Doha, Cairo and Turkey's Ankara, the capitals with which it has the closest ties, to accept the terms of the agreement.