President-elect Donald Trump has demanded the immediate release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, threatening that if they are not released before he is sworn in for a second term, “HELL TO PAY.”
Please understand that if the hostages are not freed by January 20, 2025, the day I proudly become president of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East and for those in charge who committed these horrible crimes against humanity, Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site.
He also said, “Those who did this will be hit harder than anyone else in the long and interesting history of the United States of America.” FREE THE HOSTAGES RIGHT NOW!”
As of right away, it was not clear if Trump was threatening to send the U.S. military directly to Gaza to help Israel fight Hamas. Trump’s supporters say he hopes for a ceasefire and a deal to free the hostages before he starts his new job early next year.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to say anything. But in a social media post, the country’s president, Isaac Herzog, liked what Trump said.
He wrote on X, “Thank you and God bless you, Mr. President-elect @realDonaldTrump.” “We all pray for the day we can see our family and friends again!”
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When militants led by Hamas stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, they killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 people hostage. This was the start of the war in Gaza. About two-thirds of the people who are still being held in Gaza are thought to be alive.
Trump’s threat came just hours after the Israeli government confirmed that Omer Neutra, a dual US-Israeli citizen, had died. The Israeli government says that Hamas is still thought to have his body in Gaza.
A few days before, Hamas released a video of Edan Alexander as a hostage. Alexander was in the Israeli military when Hamas took him to Gaza.
Alexander asks Trump to work to negotiate for his freedom and the freedom of the other Hamas hostages in a video that was filmed under what seems to be duress.
Now that it has helped Israel and Hezbollah reach a fragile peace deal in Lebanon, the Biden administration is making one last push to try to start talks between Israel and Hamas again.
But the government says Hamas has not shown that it wants to start negotiating again and that the group does not care about its own lives or the lives of civilians in Gaza.
The attack led to an offensive by Israel that killed at least 44,429 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. A lot of the coastal enclave has been destroyed by the war, and 90% of its 2.3 million people have been forced to move, often more than once.
This story was written with help from Associated Press reporters Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Zeke Miller in Washington, D.C.
