Trump says Hamas withholding bodies of hostages, warns he’s watching ‘very closely’

US President Donald Trump issued fresh threats to Hamas on Saturday, saying the terror group would be to blame if the ceasefire collapsed, and repeating Israeli assertions that the group has been choosing not to hand over the bodies of some deceased hostages despite being able to.

He warned that he would be watching Hamas’s actions “very closely” over the next 48 hours.

Trump made the remarks in a social media post, and as he met Qatar’s emir and prime minister aboard Air Force One. The Gulf state served as a key mediator of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal that took effect earlier this month.

The agreement requires Hamas to return all hostages, living and dead. Hamas has so far released the bodies of 15 deceased hostages along with the 20 surviving captives. The bodies of 13 others remain held in Gaza. The terror group has claimed that it is unable to access all of the bodies and does not know where some of them are. Israeli officials have reportedly said Hamas can reach most of the remaining hostages, giving varying estimates of how many may be inaccessible.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that there is currently a “very strong PEACE in the Middle East,” but that Hamas must “quickly” resume handing over the bodies to Israel or it will start facing consequences. He also alluded to the terror group resisting disarmament, another requirement of the deal.

“Hamas is going to have to start returning the bodies of the deceased hostages, including two Americans, quickly, or the other Countries involved in this GREAT PEACE will take action. Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not,” he wrote. “Perhaps it has to do with their disarming, but when I said, ‘Both sides would be treated fairly,’ that only applies if they comply with their obligations.

“Let’s see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely,” he added.

Following Trump’s post, a senior Hamas official reportedly pledged to expand the search for the remaining deceased hostages. Khalil al-Hayya, the terror group’s chief negotiator, told Qatar’s Al Jazeera overnight that teams would enter new areas of Gaza in order to locate hostages’ remains. He said Hamas did not want to provide Israel with any excuse to restart the war.

Israel is also reportedly searching for hostages’ bodies within the half of Gaza it controls. According to Kan, a security official told the families of deceased captives that a search is underway based on an intelligence assessment. The official reportedly said the government is due to approve the entry of heavy engineering equipment into Gaza to aid in the search. An Egyptian team has also entered Gaza to join the search for the bodies.

On Saturday night, thousands rallied across Israel to demand the release of the remaining deceased captives, with speakers urging continued pressure on Hamas. Hebrew media reported, citing Israeli sources, that two bodies are expected to be returned on Sunday.

On Saturday, Trump met with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who boarded Air Force One when it landed at Al Udeid Air Base, which hosts the regional headquarters for the US military and thousands of American troops. The plane was refueling in the Gulf state en route to Malaysia.

Trump hailed the emir as “one of the great rulers of the world, not just the Middle East,” and called the prime minister “my friend and a friend to the world.”

Gesturing toward the two Qatari leaders, Trump said: “We have done a lot together, especially in the last year… Peace to the Middle East, and they were a very big factor in it.”

President Trump, with UFC playing on the TV in Air Force One’s conference room, meets with the Emir and Prime Minister of Qatar.

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Trump’s plane is refueling here and picking up Secretary Rubio before heading to Malaysia. pic.twitter.com/KS3m8sFTNW

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) October 25, 2025

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Trump said Qatar would contribute troops to the planned International Stabilization Force in Gaza if needed. He praised the Gulf nation as an ally and key player in regional stability.

Asked if Qatar would be willing to contribute troops to the peacekeeping force, he said: “They’ll do it at the time they need to.”

Saying the meeting “covered a lot of territory,” Trump hailed the large number of countries involved in the effort to stabilize Gaza, which he put at 59. He said these included “very substantial nations,” including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan and Egypt.

The US president declined to give a timeline for when the multinational force will be deployed to Gaza, saying this would happen “pretty quickly” and adding: “They’re doing it right now. They’re actually picking leaders right now.”

He said “everybody agrees” on the deal, attributing its success to the 12-day war in June between Israel and Iran, in which Israel and the US bombed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.

“A year ago it would have been very tough. I think the big thing was when we took out the nuclear power Iran,” he said. “That made a whole big difference in the Middle East. It made it possible to do the deal.”

In a warning to Hamas, Trump said that if the ceasefire collapses, the terror group would be to blame.

“I think it will hold. Well, if it doesn’t hold, that would be Hamas. Hamas will be not hard to take care of very quickly. I hope it holds for Hamas too because they gave us their word on something, so I think it’s going to hold, and if it doesn’t, then they’ll have a very big problem,” he said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, fresh off a trip to Israel as part of an all-out diplomatic push by Washington to keep the Gaza truce on track, was present for the meeting with Qatar’s leaders.

On the plane en route from Israel to Qatar, Rubio said that “all of Gaza will be demilitarized” and dismissed the idea that it would be divided in the long term between Israel and Hamas.

“Ultimately, the more of Gaza is demilitarized, the more of Gaza terrorism is removed from, the more of it is going to look like that green zone — and that line will move as a result of it,” he said, referring to the so-called “Yellow Line” dividing the Israeli and Hamas zones.

“That’s the long-term plan,” he said. “The Israelis have made it abundantly clear they have no interest in occupying Gaza.”

Qatar is among the key countries backing the fragile deal, along with Egypt, the United States and Turkey. The Qatari emir hosted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week to discuss the highly sensitive next steps in the deal, including the establishment of the peacekeeping force in Gaza and the fate of Hamas.

AFP and Nurit Yohanan contributed to this report.