(JNS) US President Donald Trump said he will hold Hamas to its pledge to disarm and accused the terror group of misrepresenting the number of dead hostages it holds.

Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said his “people” were told by Hamas that they would disarm, as is called for in the Israel-Hamas peace plan that Trump put together, with mediation from key Arab leaders.

Israel and Hamas both agreed to the plan, setting into motion the ceasefire, which started last Friday, and the subsequent exchange of hostages and Palestinian security prisoners.

“I spoke to Hamas, and I said, ‘You’re going to disarm, right?’ ‘Yes, sir. We’re going to disarm.’ That’s what they told me,” Trump told reporters, initially describing it as a direct conversation.

“We have told them we want them to disarm, and they will disarm. And if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently, but they will disarm,” Trump said.

.@POTUS on Hamas: “They will disarm. And if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them — and it’ll happen quickly and, perhaps, violently, but they WILL disarm.” pic.twitter.com/69wOMao2oX

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 14, 2025

He later explained that Hamas’s affirmed pledge to disarm was delivered to him not by the terror group directly, but by “people,” likely referring to peace deal negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Trump last week approved a meeting between the Witkoff team, his special envoy for peace missions, and Kushner, his son–in–law and advisor, as well as Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to push a peace deal over the finish line.

While Hamas had earlier agreed to the outline of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, talks on phase two of the plan’s implementation, which include the disarmament component, have yet to begin. Hamas has said it wants to hold talks on the topic.

Trump declined to go into detail on any plan to force Hamas’s disarmament should it fail to live up to its commitments, other than to say it will get done in “a reasonable period of time.”

“I don’t have to explain that to you,” Trump told reporters. “They know I’m not playing games.”

Trump also told reporters that Hamas needs to follow through on releasing all of the dead hostages still held in the enclave, after producing only four bodies on Monday, following the release of all live hostages.

Trump said on Tuesday that Hamas had misrepresented to mediators the number of bodies it could produce, out of the 28 it held before the deal was signed.

“We were told they had 26, 24 dead hostages … and it seems as though they don’t have that because we’re talking about a much lesser number,” Trump said.

There is no firm deadline in the peace agreement for Hamas to return all of the bodies, but it is required to make every effort to do so as speedily as possible. A joint task force, which includes the United States, Israel, Qatar, Turkey and Egypt, has been set up to locate the bodies of hostages whose whereabouts are purportedly unknown.

“ALL TWENTY HOSTAGES ARE BACK AND FEELING AS GOOD AS CAN BE EXPECTED. A big burden has been lifted, but the job IS NOT DONE. THE DEAD HAVE NOT BEEN RETURNED, AS PROMISED!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account following the transfer of the first four bodies to Israel.

After Israel threatened to stop the transfer of humanitarian aid into the Strip and began weighing other potential measures, Hamas released another four bodies on Tuesday evening.

Trump also reiterated his approval of Hamas’s violent reassertion of its power in the Strip, telling reporters that the group’s public executions of dozens of what it deemed to be collaborators with Israel “didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you.”

“They did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad,” Trump said, “and they killed a number of gang members,” likening the situation to Venezuela sending gangs into the United States.

Trump said on Sunday that he had given Hamas “approval for a period of time” to act as a police force in Gaza.

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