Trump threatens ‘hell’ as Israel and Hamas trade blame
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Welcome to the World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Alex Dibble and Stuart Willey. On yesterday's episode, we said we'd bring you an in-depth look at how Ukraine has built robots to fight against Russian soldiers. We now hope to do that later this week with our correspondent Maxim Tucker in Ukraine, who's seen them in action. That's because today we have to turn our attention back to Gaza. There

There's been a fresh blow to the prospects of long-term peace in Gaza. Donald Trump has threatened to scrap the three-week-old Gaza ceasefire deal. His warning came just hours after Hamas postponed the release of hostages, blaming Israel for violating the terms of the agreement. If all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12 o'clock, I think it's an appropriate time, I would say...

cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. Mr Trump also warned Egypt and Jordan that they must take in Palestinians displaced by his plan to clear Gaza or they would risk losing billions of dollars in aid. Our guest today is The Times' defence correspondent George Grylls who's been covering this story. George, how much of a risk to the ceasefire is all this?

Oh, it's a real risk. This is a bit of an existential moment. This is just the first phase and arguably the most straightforward of three phases for a deal. And at this early stage, to have problems and a breakdown of trust on both sides is a real issue.

Both sides disagree over who's broken the terms. Hamas says Israel's blocked humanitarian aid and shot at civilians. Israel, for its part, is angry about changes to the order that hostages will be released. And the angry crowds we've seen during those handovers are both sides at fault here. I don't think it's as straightforward as that. It's hard to kind of, you know...

attribute blame directly. Certainly, what we have seen is a pretty disorderly handover ceremonies for the past couple of weekends. So firstly, you had those scenes at the end of last month, where like you say, there were kind of crowds jostling one of the Israeli hostages as she was being released. It was pretty distressing to see. And then, as you've seen over the course of the releases, some of the hostages have appeared increasingly gaunt and the

Yeah, really.

And then Hamas's grievances concern, like you say, the humanitarian aid. I think it specifically stood with the shelters they thought that would be provided. They're arguing that Israel is preventing any kind of permanent rebuilding, although obviously, you know, it's a temporary shelter, but a step towards a kind of permanent rebuilding of the north of Gaza. So I think that would be their main concern. But also there was an incident where

Three Palestinians were shot by the IDF, according to the kind of local health authorities, a couple of days ago. So that's an incident where they, again, would accuse Israel of violating the ceasefire terms.

George, wherever the blame lies, Donald Trump had that warning for Hamas saying that they will find out what he means by hell breaking out. How has Hamas reacted to that? Well, they've kind of leveraged their own threats back. It's worth bearing in mind that, you know, Trump had kind of staked his diplomatic credentials on getting that ceasefire deal over the line just almost, you know, at the same time as his inauguration.

And, you know, there are reports that he wants to eventually secure a kind of Nobel Peace Prize. And peace in the Middle East is, you know, one at aim. But part of his vision involves expelling all Palestinians from Gaza, which is obviously inflammatory, not just to Palestinians, but also for the wide Arab world and the U.S.,

Most people think of it as being a strong ally of Israel and that being its main partner in the Middle East, and perhaps it is, but it also has significant relationship with both Egypt and Jordan, who are the two countries that Trump is now threatening to dump millions of Palestinians on, which could cause huge unrest in those two countries as well. George, we've seen thousands and thousands of Palestinians heading back to the north of Gaza in the first few weeks since the ceasefire began.

If the ceasefire now collapses, this weekend perhaps, would the return of fighting, the return to hostilities, be even worse now that people are back in their droves and, as you say, in very ramshackled shelters? I think that's been the status of the war for some time. If you look at...

the way in which the war unfolded basically from north to south eventually you know the israeli military ended up going through the whole of the gulf strip all the way to rafa and by the time they reached rafa most people were living in tents there so it's you know i think you just need to look back at the war over the past year or so just to see what would happen in the north again it's just as families are kind of trying to rebuild their shattered lives

I suppose, George, without direct US military involvement, it would be action by Israel that's being threatened here. What's been the response to all of this in Israel? Well, there is a contingent of extremists who were always opposed to the ceasefire. And Ismail Ben-Kvir, who was a minister in Netanyahu's coalition, ideally Netanyahu would like him back in his coalition to maintain his position.

the strength of that coalition. Anyway, he quit over the Ziz Fardel initially, and now he said, you know, let's restart the war in no uncertain terms. So there is pressure from the right in Israeli politics, certainly to...

get back to fighting. On the other hand, you've also seen huge protests again in Tel Aviv, where most of the kind of demonstrations from hostages families tend to take place where they've been saying, you know, we absolutely must free all the remaining hostages as well. So as throughout this conflict, domestic Israeli politics have been extremely important in determining what happens next.

Donald Trump's suggestion of what might happen next is his plan that two million Palestinians will be taken out of Gaza without the right to return. How much is his Riviera plan hitting the prospects for the second phase of this deal?

I think it's, for Hamas, it just kind of says, because the second phase deals with who is going to be in charge, of course, on these kind of thornier political questions in due course. And obviously the West, under the Biden administration, was kind of looking at some sort of iteration of the Palestinian Authority. Now, Trump's kind of scruble remarks about, you know, expelling all Palestinians and turning it into the Riviera of the Middle East,

is completely blows up the idea of even some sort of other Palestinian rule in Gaza, saying there will be no Palestinians in Gaza. So it completely changes everything to do with the subsequent phases of the ceasefire deal. And you can see the desperation that this has triggered among the US's allies in the Middle East, in Jordan and Egypt, because, you know, the King of Jordan is going to Washington, D.C. to desperately try and...

to make his case there to say, you know, please don't do this. We already host 2 million Palestinian refugees. This could really, you know, cause major unrest in, in, in my country as well. So,

It's a worrying moment for them. But again, domestically in Israel, Netanyahu can barely contain his glee and he doesn't really have to do a huge amount. If you look to that press conference in America, he essentially sat mute next to Trump as Trump started kind of churning out ideas, seemingly kind of making up his kind of vision for what the Middle East will look like on the spot. Middle Eastern leaders certainly haven't been quiet. They've rejected Trump's plan outright.

But with Donald Trump threatening to pull those billions of dollars in aid if they refuse to take Palestinians, just how difficult will that meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah at the White House be?

Really difficult, really, really difficult. And it's hard to undersell how important an ally Jordan is in this part. You know, there are US troops literally based there. And not only with the US and the UK and Europe and so on and so forth does Jordan have a relationship, it also has a strong relationship with Israel and its security and defense establishment has cooperated and worked with Israel in the past. So,

It's existential for them in Jordan. And then for Egypt, well, Egypt, like Jordan, but even maybe more so, is an authoritarian state with a young population battling huge inflation. The conditions are ripe for some small thing to set off another huge round of unrest like we saw in the Arab Spring. So for Sisi in Egypt as well, this is a massive problem. Yeah.

George, thank you. That's The Times defence correspondent George Grylls. If you'd like to hear more about the diplomatic dance unfolding in the Middle East following Trump's proposals, check out two of last week's episodes of The World in Ten, where we spoke to our Times correspondents in the region and beyond. That's it for us for today. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow.

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