Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump, a day before meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called for a quick end to the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and a return of the hostages, adding that “Israel is not very good at public relations.”
Asked about his plan to end the war in Gaza should he be elected president, the former US president told Fox News that he wants Netanyahu to “finish up and get it done quickly… because they are getting decimated with this publicity.”
He also reiterated his claim multiple times during the phone interview that Hamas’s October 7 massacre and the ensuing war in Gaza would not have happened if he had been president at the time.
“You know, October 7 would never have happened if I was president. There was no chance. Iran was broke. They had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah. It just wouldn’t have happened. Zero chance,” he said, adding that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the ongoing war there also wouldn’t have happened under his watch.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Vowing to destroy the terror group and free the hostages, Israel launched a wide-scale military offensive in Gaza, which has raised global ire amid a mounting death toll and concerns about food insecurity in the Palestinian enclave.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and gunmen. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack. It says it takes steps to avoid harming noncombatants, and accuses Hamas of putting civilians in harm’s way by fighting from inside residential areas.
Trump also criticized anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists who converged on Washington on Wednesday to protest Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress, calling for a one-year jail sentence for desecrating the national flag.
“Rarely have we seen anything like this and I think you should get a one-year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag. Now, people will say, ‘Oh it’s unconstitutional’ — those are stupid people,” Trump said.
Protesters marching toward the capital on Wednesday chanting “Free, free Palestine” climbed flagpoles to replace American flags with Palestinian flags, burned an effigy of Netanyahu and clashed with police during the demonstration.
“That was a disgrace yesterday,” Trump told Fox News.
Trump also appeared to say that Jerusalem needs to rein in anti-Israel Jewish groups such as the ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta and extreme-left Jewish Voice for Peace as they are negatively affecting Israel’s international standing.
“Israel, for whatever reason, you have Jewish people out there wearing yarmulkes, and they’re pro-Palestine, you’ve never seen anything like it… Israel has to handle their public relations. Their public relations are not good. And they’ve gotta get this done fast. Because the world is not taking lightly to it,” he said in the phone interview.
Asked about US military assistance to Israel and whether he would make changes to the current US policy, Trump dodged the question and reiterated his stance that the war in Gaza must be finished quickly.
“I’d make sure that it gets over with fast. You have to end this fast. It can’t continue to go on like this. It’s too long. It’s too much,” he said before turning to the 111 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 believed to remain in Gaza.
“You’ve gotta get your hostages back. I think they’re gonna have a lot of bad news with the hostages. I think some of those hostages, many of them, maybe are dead. I believe they are dead. I watched them as they took the hostages in disbelief — again, it would have never happened if I was president,” he said.
The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 39 of the hostages still held by terror groups in Gaza.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 24 hostages have been recovered, including three abductees mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
One more person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
Noting the “level of violence and viciousness” of Hamas terrorists documented in footage from October 7, Trump said, “I don’t believe they’re really capable of taking care of all these hostages.”
With negotiations on a ceasefire and hostages-for-prisoners deal between Israel and Hamas apparently in their closing stage, he added that the number of hostages the terror group is holding alive is “one of the reasons that Hamas is not really negotiating very nicely.”
Earlier Thursday, a senior US official said that US President Joe Biden was set to discuss remaining gaps with Netanyahu in their meeting later in the day.
The official said the remaining obstacles were bridgeable and that an agreement was close. The deal calls for an initial six-week ceasefire that would take place alongside the release of women, elderly men and wounded hostages from Gaza in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners.
Reuters and Jacob Magid contributed to this report.