"The president's conditions are 'very clear': Hamas must lay down its weapons and demilitarize, or 'all hell will break loose,'" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with CBS News published Tuesday.
The US outlet noted that Netanyahu is hopeful that the next phase of the peace agreement between Israel and Hamas will be peaceful, but noted that his country is"ready" to disarm Hamas.
"We agreed to give peace a chance," Netanyahu said Tuesday, a day after US President Donald Trump, the architect of the 20-point peace plan, made a brief visit to Tel Aviv to mark the first phase of the truce, declaring that"the war is over."
The first phase of the agreement consisted of the release of the 20 live Israeli hostages and the return of the bodies of 28 more. Hamas has yet to hand over the bodies of 20 dead hostages.
In return, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and returned the bodies of 90 Palestinians who died during the war.
This phase also required Israel to withdraw from parts of the Gaza Strip and to allow the entry of some 600 trucks of humanitarian aid per day into the Palestinian territory.
Now that the live hostages and some of the dead have been returned, Netanyahu said the next steps must be demilitarization and disarmament.
"First, Hamas has to hand over its weapons," Netanyahu said in an exclusive interview in Tel Aviv with CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil."And second, we have to make sure there are no weapons factories inside Gaza. No weapons smuggling into Gaza. That's demilitarization."
Hamas has refused to hand over its weapons. Trump warned Tuesday that if the group does not disarm,"we will disarm them."
Netanyahu said he heard Trump's comments and paraphrased them as "all hell is breaking loose."
"Well, I hope not," Netanyahu said."I hope we can do it peacefully. We're certainly ready to do that."
"For those who doubt that Israel wants peace, Netanyahu said to look at the Abraham Accords, in which Israel normalized relations with four Arab League nations," the US media outlet notes.
"We have the opportunity to expand that peace," the Israeli prime minister said, adding that it would be"the greatest gift we can give to the people of Israel, the people of the region, and the people of the world."
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