U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) isn’t confident that President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to end the war in Gaza will be successful – because Hamas isn’t trustworthy.
Trump announced a potential 20-point peace deal Tuesday alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The plan calls for an immediate cease-fire, an exchange of all the hostages still in Gaza, a staged withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas, and the creation of a transitional government lead by an international body.
“It’s now or never for Hamas,” Tuberville said Wednesday on Fox Business. “He’s given them all the rope they can possibly take and he’s about had it. So the one thing I worry about is the short time limit that they have to get the hostages back. What is it? 72 hours? That’s gonna be hard to do, but again, we need to get them out, but if they don’t do it, there’s gonna be hell to pay. But they don’t care about dying. That’s what worries me. Hamas, they think they’re on on planet earth to die, and that really concerns me, when it comes down to making this deal.”
Hamas signaled it might reject the plan Thursday, telling the BBC that it only “serves Israel’s interests” and ignores the Palestinian people.
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” Tuberville added. “They’re down to about their third tier, and Hamas leadership, the rest of them have been wiped out. I don’t know how smart they’re going to be. I don’t know how together they’re gonna be. I don’t know who’s gonna make the decision. Again, when you got 22 parts of this plan, it’s gonna be hard for them to get through it, to make all of them work. President Trump will work with them. We need peace in the Middle East. We need Israel to be protected. We all know that.”
The senator said he’s not sure if there’s anyone within the Palestinian leadership that can be trusted.
“But at the end of the day, I’m not very confident that they have a group of people over there smart enough to make this deal for the people of Palestine,” he said. I don’t know where they have that.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
