U.S. President Donald Trump trumpeted his success in helping to bring back all of the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
“Under the ceasefire I negotiated, every single hostage, both living and dead, has been returned home,” the president said, thanking U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for the role they played.
“Nobody thought it was possible,” he said. “I always said those last 20 are going to be very tough,” referring to the final group of living hostages.
Trump also spoke of the 28 deceased captives, whose bodies were recovered as part of the Oct. 2025 ceasefire agreement he mediated.
“I remember the family of the 28th. They were so grieved, but they were so happy, as happy as it was possible to be. They had their boy back,” Trump said of the parents of Israeli Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, whose body was the last returned to Israel, after being found in an IDF operation in Gaza.
Trump said the war in Gaza continues, but “at a very low level.”
The president also spoke of Iran, warning it not to rebuild its weapons programs after Operation Midnight Hammer last June.
“We wiped it out, and they want to start all over again, and are at this moment again, pursuing their sinister ambitions,” Trump said.
“We are in negotiations with them,” he said. “They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words, ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon.’”
