U.S. President-elect Donald Trump vowed consequences for Hamas on Monday if the terror group did not release its hostages before inauguration day.
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 wrote.
“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America,” he added. “Release the hostages now.”
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 comes on the same day that the Israel Defense Forces 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 the Gaza Strip.
It also follows Trump’s meeting on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s older 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 President Isaac Herzog welcomed Trump’s message on Monday.
“Thank you and bless you Mr. President-elect Donald Trump,” Herzog wrote. “We all pray for the moment we see our sisters and brothers back home.”
