For What Its Worth I was working on this post since before the Hamas announcement about not releasing anymore hostages. Sadly what I had written so far... well it does kind of hint at this very thing happening.

Since President Trump came back into power on January 20th it has been interesting to see how conflicts across the world have reacted to this. When it comes to the Middle East and the conflicts that Israel has been involved in we have seen ceasefires come to fruition and one of the bigger things that we have not heard about was the halting of attacks on US Service Members and allied bases in Iraq and Syria. Given that Syria's government has also collapsed it is pretty interesting to see no one provoking President Trump by making a decision they will rapidly come to regret.

Yesterday, on Air Force One President Trump made it crystal clear that Hamas was in trouble. The shape that the hostages were coming out was as he put it reminiscent of the pictures we have from holocaust survivors. This does not even factor in how Hamas was using these releases as a PR stunt setting up stages, giving the hostages goody bags, and even making them sign documents. Even when they did not physically assault or harm the hostages they mentally continued their sick mental tricks. Given that Trump went on to say he was not sure how much longer we could take this the future of Hamas is not looking good at all.

The options at hand are widespread from forcing Turkey and Qatar to hand over the civil leaders to face trial in either the US or Israel to face the consequences of their and their organizations actions. To ending the ceasefire and resuming hostilities. Even more the US could begin providing overwatch support for Israeli ground troops including close air support. While Trump has been outspoken about keeping the US out of wars if he does not put boots on the ground than he can save face while also help our ally Israel.

Now that Hamas has declared it will not be releasing hostages at the previously announced time there is a significant risk that the ceasefire will collapse during this Phase One time frame. From what I have gathered from the Hamas announcement and the reasons they are stating well... they are not honest reasons as Israel just within the last couple of days finished the removal of troops from the corridor that divided Gaza into the North and the South. Not only that but an enormous amount of aid has gone into Gaza since the ceasefire. Levels that we have not previously seen during this conflict so given these two huge things that Hamas wanted this is not looking good for them and was a terrible play.

Well if a I was a member of Hamas I would really start looking at my leadership wanting to know what the hell the end goal was. A couple of hours ago (again after I had written update 1 but still had not posted) President Trump just told Hamas it is game over. Return the hostages by Noon Saturday or HE was canceling the ceasefire and he will "let all hell break loose."

This is the thing Hamas did not want and was the worst case scenario because now I fully expect we will see the US armed forces in the air over the strip while Israeli forces move in on the ground. Any attempt by Hamas to take a pot shot will be met with something wild like a Hellfire missile and civilian causalities will go out the window. Hamas still has not returned all the American hostages and now they blew their ability to bargin. The only way I see this ending now is either Hamas being eradicated which will not only take time but likely will require Gulf Nations to put a peace keeping force on the ground or Hamas has an an unconditional surrender and someone like Iran takes in the leaders and soldiers.

They will not maintain a presence in Gaza and the leaders in Qatar and Turkey are also probably SOL right now getting ready to likely go to jail and be executed by either the US or Israel. This is also going to be a shot across the bow for Russia for what happens when you dont agree to a ceasefire and you cause issues.