Under pressure from its overseas hosts and increasingly reviled at home, the militant group had little choice but to relent

By Jared Malsin and Summer Said – Oct. 12, 2025 12:12 pm ET – Wall Street Journal

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Hamas gunmen in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Sunday. Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

Hamas initially rejected President Trump’s peace plan, which required disarmament without guarantees for ending the war.

Hamas agreed to the deal after Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey threatened to withdraw political and diplomatic support.

• The agreement involves Hamas releasing all hostages in Gaza, setting the stage for a release early this week.

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• Hamas initially rejected President Trump’s peace plan, which required disarmament without guarantees for ending the war.View more

SHARM EL SHEIKH—When Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya first saw President Trump’s plan for peace in Gaza, which demanded that his group disarm with few concrete steps to ensure Israel would end the war, his immediate reaction was no.

The plan, heavily amended by Israel and presented to Hamas by the Qatari prime minister and Egypt’s spy chief, looked nothing like what Hayya had been led to expect, officials familiar with the discussions said. Hayya, who less than a month earlier had been a target of Israel’s audacious attack on Hamas in Qatar, told his visitors the group would keep its Israeli hostages until it had enforceable guarantees the war would end.

But two days later, Hamas came back to Arab mediators with a yes. The deal hadn’t changed. The pressure on Hamas had.

Egypt and Qatar told Hayya the deal was his last chance to end the war, according to the officials. They pressed Hamas to understand that holding the hostages was becoming a strategic liability, giving Israel a source of legitimacy to keep fighting.

The next day, joined by Turkey, they warned him that if Hamas didn’t approve the plan it would be stripped of all political and diplomatic cover; Qatar and Turkey would no longer host the group’s political leadership, and Egypt would stop pressing for Hamas to have a say in Gaza’s postwar governance, the officials said.

It was enough to get Hamas to agree to release all its hostages in Gaza and sign on to the first part of Trump’s peace deal, giving up what had been its most important bargaining chip to keep a seat at the table. While modifying its acceptance with heavy caveats that reflected its concerns about the deal, Hamas had given Trump an opportunity to declare victory and set the stage for a hostage release early this week.