Trump warns Hamas: Free captives before Jan. 20
President-elect Donald Trump warned on Monday that if Hamas did not release its hostages before inauguration day, “those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America.”
“Release the hostages now,” he demanded.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that there had been “all talk, no action” to free the captives so far.
“If the hostages are not released prior to Jan. 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume office as president of the United States, there will be all hell to pay in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against humanity,” Trump said.
Jerusalem believes that 97 of the 251 hostages taken during the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, remain in Gaza after 423 days. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Trump’s statement demanding the release of hostages came on the same day that the IDF revealed that Omer Neutra, an Israeli-American serving in the IDF who was previously thought to have been taken alive, was killed on Oct. 7 and that Hamas continues to hold his body in Gaza.
It also follows Trump’s meeting on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair, and the prime minister’s wife Sara at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Trump has previously indicated through surrogates that he wants a ceasefire-for-hostage deal to be completed by the time he takes office, but Monday’s statement is one of the most direct such calls the president-elect has made and the clearest indication that he would demand consequences if a deal fails to materialize.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog both thanked Trump.
“It is a forceful statement, which makes it clear that there is only one responsible for this situation, and that is Hamas,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
“Hamas needs to release the hostages,” Netanyahu continued. “President Trump put the emphasis in the correct place, on Hamas, and not on the Israeli government, as is customary in some places.”
The prime minister said his government would continue to do everything in its power to release the captives from Gaza, warning Hamas that “whoever harms them, their blood is on their own heads.
“President Trump also said this yesterday, and this adds validity to this whole adage,” Netanyahu said. “We have already proven that we are fulfilling this edict, and we will not relent. We will return all of our hostages.”
“Thank you and bless you Mr. President-elect Donald Trump,” Herzog wrote on Monday. “We all pray for the moment we see our sisters and brothers back home.”
