Is Trump exploiting Irans crisis to push out Hamas and allow for Gaza peace?

Don’t uncork your champagne quite yet, but President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan is taking some surprising steps forward.This push comes as Hamas’ patrons in Tehran are under siege at home, containing a national protest movement only by flooding every city’s streets with heavily armed troops: That standoff may present the chance to force the terrorists to finally give up their grip on Gaza.This week, Trump and envoy Steve Witkoff announced “the launch of Phase Two” of the peace plan, including Hamas’ “demilitarization” and the creation of “a transitional technocratic Palestinian administration in Gaza” headed by Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister.The prez on Friday named European diplomat Nickolay Mladenov as High Representative for Gaza, under the Board of Peace that’s to oversee the transitional government, as well members of a Gaza Executive Board that’s to assist Shaath.

All this offers hope for a path to an eventual full peace in Gaza — but it’s a minefield-packed path.For starters, Hamas has yet to to return the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, taken in the Oct.7 assault on Israel that massacred more than 1,200 innocents — and that’s far from the terrorists’ only failure to meet their Phase 1 obligations: They’ve also refused to disarm, instead focusing on rebuilding their ranks and their tunnels and bunkers.Cash from Qatar and Iran and from new taxes on beleaguered Gazans lets Hamas keep paying thousands of fighters, and even recruit new ones.Trump himself admitted last week that “it’s not in [Hamas’] nature to disarm.”Meanwhile, the group has staged repeated attacks on Israel and its military, including a (failed) rocket launch just last week, violating the cease-fire and sparking IDF reprisals — and with the terrorists prepping for renewed fighting, not peace, Israel’s had no choice but to plan for a fresh offensive in the Hamas-controlled portion of Gaza.

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