Palestinians are growing impatient with Hamas as the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsens and the terrorist organization has yet to accept the terms of President Donald Trump’s peace deal, Gazans told the New York Times (NYT).
Residents in the Gaza Strip told the NYT that Hamas has dragged the region’s people into a grueling war that has devastated thousands of regular people’s lives since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Hamas has until Saturday at the latest to accept or deny the proposed peace plan after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to the terms on September 30.
“Hamas must say yes to this offer — we have been through hell already,” Mahmoud Bolbol, a 43-year-old construction worker in Gaza City told the NYT. (RELATED: ‘Huge Step Forward’: Former Biden Official Praises Trump’s Peace Deal Proposal To End Israel-Hamas War)
“We are dying for nothing, and no one cares about us,” Nasayem Muqat, a Gaza resident who fled Gaza City amid Israel’s military campaign with her young daughter, told the NYT. “Hamas needs to think more of us and what we have been through.”
Some residents are not optimistic that Hamas will come to the peace table, with one resident saying that the organization doesn’t “care about what people think or public opinion,” he told the NYT. Another wished that Trump would simply force the treaty on both sides as the “reality.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Over 33,000 Palestinians have been displaced as a result of Israeli military campaigns, according to United Nations (UN) data. Nearly one in four Gazans face famine as an average of eight mass casualty incidents occur daily.
The ceasefire proposal calls for Hamas to demilitarize and hand over power to an international governing body headed by Trump and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Under the agreement, Hamas would also release all remaining hostages, while Israel would fully withdraw from the region after the new authority takes over governance.
Arab nations have backed the proposal, and are pressuring Hamas to accept its terms.
