Hamas will be disarmed “either the easy way or the hard way,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Knesset lawmakers on Monday, responding to terror chief Khaled Mashaal’s rejection of President Donald Trump’s demands for the Gaza Strip to be fully demilitarized.
“How did Khaled Mashaal put it yesterday? ‘We will continue on our path and we will not disarm.’ But we—and I commit to you—will not allow Hamas murderers to rearm and threaten us again,” he declared during a 40-signature debate in the Knesset, which the opposition can call once a month and which the prime minister is required to attend.
“We are acting every day to prevent this, and this mission will be completed either the easy way or the hard way,” he continued.
צפו בדברים שאמרתי היום במליאת הכנסת >> pic.twitter.com/m9kXKyhxIC
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) December 8, 2025
Mashaal, in a pre-recorded speech broadcast at an anti-Israel summit held in Istanbul over the weekend, rejected the U.S.- and U.N.-backed demands for Hamas to disarm and for the Strip to be demilitarized.
“Protecting the resistance project and its weapons is the right of our people to defend themselves,” stated Mashaal.
“The resistance and its weapons are the honor and pride of the ummah [the Islamic nation],” Mashaal continued. “A thousand statements are not worth a single projectile of iron.”
Mashaal in his taped speech also dismissed “all forms of guardianship, mandate and re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and all of Palestine,” rejecting another key part of Trump’s plan for Gaza, which calls for a transitional governing body supervised by a Board of Peace.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told JNS on Sunday that Washington expects Hamas “to abide by the deal they signed.”
“Hamas has agreed to all 20 points of President Trump’s 20 Point Plan. That means Gaza will be fully demilitarized for the sake of Gazans,” the spokesperson said in a statement emailed to JNS on Sunday afternoon.
Netanyahu reiterated on Monday that the terror group is in “constant violation” of the U.S.-brokered truce deal that went into effect Oct. 10.
However, Netanyahu said, “We are on the verge of completing the first stage of President Trump’s 20-point plan, and now we are focusing on the next mission: disarming Hamas and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip.”
He stressed that the Jewish state would not waver in its “sacred mission” of returning for burial the remains of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, an officer in the Israel Police’s elite Special Patrol Unit (Yasam) who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose body was taken to Gaza.
Gvili, who battled terrorists during the attack, is the final remaining captive in the Strip; his remains have been held in the enclave for 794 days.
Under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire and hostage-release agreement that went into effect last month, Hamas committed to returning to Israel all 28 bodies the terrorist group was holding captive on Oct. 13.
However, the terrorist organization slow-walked their return, delaying its disarmament, which is set to take place in the second phase with a deployment of Trump’s proposed International Stabilization Force.
