Hamas calls on Donald Trump to ‘stop the war’ in Gaza after the election results

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has issued a statement calling on the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump to make “stopping the war” in Gaza a priority.

The statement comes amid reports that Trump recently advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the military conflict ahead of his inauguration on January 20, following his election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

“In light of the first results showing that Donald Trump won the US presidential election,” Hamas responded to the election results, and they expect Trump to “listen to the voices that have been raised by the American public for more than a year regarding (Israeli) aggression in the Gaza Strip.”

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The Times of Israel reported that Trump’s remarks calling for an end to the conflict were reportedly first shared with Netanyahu during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, in July.

The statement by Hamas outlined several specific demands from the United States to “work seriously to end the war of genocide and aggression against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

Hamas requests to end ‘military support’ to Israel

The militant group also called for an end to the “aggression against the brotherly Lebanese people” and asked the United States to stop providing “military support and political cover to the Zionist entity.” Hamas also called on the Trump administration to recognize what it refers to as “the legitimate rights of our people”.

Hamas emphasized its intention to continue to oppose what it considers the “hateful (Israeli) occupation” and declared that it would not accept any solutions that compromise Palestinian rights to “freedom, independence, self-determination and the establishment of their independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” in line with Hamas’s longstanding position on Palestinian sovereignty and its opposition to Israel’s presence in territories which the Palestinians claim.

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The policies of the current administration of the United States under the presidency of Joe Biden along with VP Harris have been quite pro-Israel; However, the White House has previously issued demarches against some actions by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In October, President Biden called for a ceasefire just before the IDF began operations in Lebanon.