“We’ve Never Heard of This Plan!”: Hamas Official Blasts Trump’s Peace Deal as an ‘Israeli Melody’

Despite the high-stakes White House announcement that Israel had agreed to President Donald Trump's 21-point plan to end the Gaza war, the Hamas terror organization has officially cooled the growing optimism, with a senior leader Mahmoud Mardawi dismissing the framework as nothing more than a political stunt favouring Israel. The group stated it has not formally received the proposal and will only respond after a comprehensive review.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera, Mardawi, a senior figure in Hamas's political bureau, initially criticized the context of the war: "What has been happening for two years until now in the Gaza Strip is a barbaric, criminal, and Nazi action by the Israeli enemy, with support from the U.S. This crime and this form of destruction that humanity has not known, we have done everything we can to stop it during the past months and two years."

Mardawi then directly addressed the Trump plan, pouring cold water on the claims of broad acceptance: "Trump’s plan has not reached us, nor any Palestinian party so far. We have not reviewed the plan, but its provisions are close to the Israeli vision." He stated that a written version is essential for any official response: “We will respond to the plan after we receive it.”

The senior official stressed a core principle that he believes the plan violates: "The weapon of the Palestinian people will be taken by force without a horizon, without a path, and without steps that will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

When the interviewer noted that President Trump had named several Arab and Islamic leaders who had agreed to the plan, Mardawi dismissed the claim as “impossible,” reiterating: "I think this is impossible, and we have a central principle, the right of the Palestinian people to decide their fate." Other Hamas officials doubled down on this skepticism, with one telling Al-Jazeera, "We have never heard of this plan, nor has any Palestinian representative. Let Trump send it to us in an orderly, written form and we will consider whether to respond." Another official commented that Netanyahu and Trump were performing "a trick on the Palestinian people just like they did to Iran," implying manipulation.

However, a conflicting message emerged from a Hamas official who told Reuters that the group would "examine the proposal in a positive spirit and return an answer," suggesting an internal division or strategic ambiguity regarding the immediate rejection. Meanwhile, the Houthi group weighed in, calling the Trump plan “not feasible” and asserting its goal is to “complicate the situation for Hamas and put the blame on them” while aiming to “stop the world’s anger against Israel and eliminate international solidarity with Palestine.”

Despite Hamas’s rejection of the initial fanfare, the group is awaiting official communication of the plan, with their response set to determine if the war will end the "easy way or the hard way," as Prime Minister Netanyahu warned.