NEW YORK — Hamas cannot continue to exist in Gaza “with a gun, without a gun,” Tammy Bruce, the new State Dept. spokeswoman, told reporters on March 6 in her first press briefing.
Until Hamas returns all the remaining hostages held in Gaza, “there is no path forward,” Bruce said, calling it “an impossible situation” with “monsters, who are controlling and destroying Gazan lives and the lives of people around the region.”
The spokeswoman’s comments come a day after President Donald Trump held an Oval Office meeting with a delegation of freed Israeli hostages.
He vowed shortly after the meeting to destroy Hamas if it doesn’t immediately free the remaining captives.
Bruce said that the administration’s posture toward the region, including Trump’s controversial plan for a post-Hamas Gaza, is necessary.
“There’s been nothing new,” Bruce said of the stagnant politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It’s wash, rinse and repeat, back and forth for generations, and the approach now, in this dynamic, is that it has to be a new approach.”
New ideas have emerged, but “one thing stays the same and is unmovable, and it is the existence of Hamas as a factor on the ground in that region will make it impossible to continue” with progress, Bruce said.
She also said that the Arab plan for Gaza, which was released this week after a summit in Cairo, “does not fulfill the requirements and nature of what President Trump was asking for, but it was a welcomed effort.
“We have a very good chance at accomplishing” a successful outcome with the Arab leadership. “We’ve articulated to leadership regarding what’s acceptable and what is not,” she said. “So these conversations clearly will have to continue.”
The $53 billion Arab League plan for the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip that would avoid the displacement of the Palestinian population was embraced by France, Germany, Britain and Italy.
“The plan shows a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and promises — if implemented — swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions for the Palestinians living in Gaza,” the foreign ministers of the four nations said in a joint statement.
The four countries were “committed to working with the Arab initiative,” announced at an Arab League summit in Cairo, while stressing that Hamas “must neither govern Gaza nor be a threat to Israel any more.”
The ministers said that they endorse the “central role for the Palestinian Authority and the implementation of its reform agenda.”
Hamas expressed support for the plan for the creation of a “Community Support Committee” that would oversee relief efforts, reconstruction and governance in Gaza, as outlined in the proposal for temporary administrative body proposed at the Cairo summit.
The draft document sets out a five-year plan to rebuild Gaza in two-phases — an initial six-month recovery phase followed by building 400,000 housing units, plus an airport, industrial zones, hotels and parks.
An administrative committee of Palestinian technocrats would govern Gaza, Reuters reported, supervised by the PA.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry on March 4 said the summit ignored the realities on the ground following the Hamas-led massacre of Oct. 7, 2023.
“The statement remains rooted in outdated perspectives. It fails to mention Hamas’ brutal terrorist attack, which resulted in thousands of Israeli deaths and hundreds of kidnappings.”
Israel also condemned the summit for its failure to denounce Hamas explicitly.
On Iran, Bruce said that the Trump administration is reviewing all existing sanctions waivers that provide Iran with “any degree of economic or financial relief.”
Washington is also urging the Iraqi government to end its reliance on Iranian energy sources, she said.
Bruce was asked whether a sanctions waiver, which allows Iraq to pay Iran for electricity and which expires this week, would be renewed.
“The Iraq sanctions waiver, as you’ve noted, for Iran gas imports expires on the 8th. We have, at this point as you might imagine, we have nothing to announce with regards to the current electricity waiver that expires on the 8th.
“In line with National Security Presidential Memorandum No. 2, we are reviewing all existing sanctions waivers that provide Iran any degree of economic or financial relief, and we are urging the Iraqi government to eliminate its dependence on Iranian sources of energy as soon as possible,” she said.
Washington welcomes “the Iraqi prime minister’s commitment to achieve energy independence. Hopefully, the US is leading the way when it comes to that kind of an approach.”
