‘To the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!’

These were not the words of some far-right provocateur lurking in a dark corner of the internet. They were not shouted by an unhinged warlord seeking vengeance.

No, these were the words of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world. A man who with a signature, a speech or a single phrase can shape the fate of entire nations.

And yet, with all this power, all this influence, his words to the people of Gaza were not of peace, not of diplomacy, not of relief — but of death.

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I read them and I feel sick.

Because I know exactly who he is speaking to. He is speaking to my family. To my parents, who lost relatives and their home.

To my siblings, who no longer have a place to return to. To the starving children in Gaza, who have done nothing but be born to a people the world has deemed unworthy of existence.

To the grieving mothers who have buried their children. To the fathers who can do nothing but watch their babies die in their arms.

To the people who have lost everything and yet are still expected to endure more.

No future left
Trump speaks of a “beautiful future” for the people of Gaza. But there is no future left where homes are gone, where whole families have been erased, where children have been massacred.

I read these words and I ask: What kind of a world do we live in?

A world where the leader of the so-called “free world” can issue a blanket death sentence to an entire population — two million people, most of whom are displaced, starving and barely clinging to life.

A world where a man who commands the most powerful military can sit in his office, insulated from the screams, the blood, the unbearable stench of death, and declare that if the people of Gaza do not comply with his demand — if they do not somehow magically find and free hostages they have no control over — then they are simply “dead”.

A world where genocide survivors are given an ultimatum of mass death by a man who claims to stand for peace.

This is not just absurd. It is evil.

Trump’s words are criminal. They are a direct endorsement of genocide. The people of Gaza are not responsible for what is happening. They are not holding hostages.

Trapped by an Israeli war machine
They are the hostages – trapped by an Israeli war machine that has stolen everything from them. Hostages to a brutal siege that has starved them, bombed them, displaced them, left them with nowhere to go.

And now, they have become hostages to the most powerful man on Earth, who threatens them with more suffering, more death, unless they meet a demand they are incapable of fulfilling.

Most cynically, Trump knows his words will not be met with any meaningful pushback. Who in the American political establishment will hold him accountable for threatening genocide?

The Democratic Party, which enabled Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza? Congress, which overwhelmingly supports sending US military aid to Israel with no conditions? The mainstream media, which have systematically erased Palestinian suffering?

There is no political cost for Trump to make such statements. If anything, they bolster his position.

This is the world we live in. A world where Palestinian lives are so disposable that the President of the United States can threaten mass death without fear of any consequences.

I write this because I refuse to let this be just another outrageous Trump statement that people laugh off, that the media turns into a spectacle, that the world forgets.

“‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye – You can choose. Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you. Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted! I am… pic.twitter.com/88EjVAyWAe

— President Donald J. Trump (@POTUS) March 5, 2025

My heart. My everything
I write this because Gaza is not a talking point. It is not a headline. It is my home. My family. My history. My heart. My everything.

And I refuse to accept that the President of the United States can issue death threats to my people with impunity.

The people of Gaza do not control their own fate. They have never had that luxury. Their fate has always been dictated by the bombs that fall on them, by the siege that starves them, by the governments that abandon them.

And now, their fate is being dictated by a man in Washington, DC, who sees no issue with threatening the annihilation of an entire population.

So I ask again: What kind of world do we live in?

And how long will we allow it to remain this way?

Ahmed Najar is a Palestinian political analyst and a playwright. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.