US President Donald Trump said on Friday that “there could be a couple of dead in recent days” from the 20 hostages thought to still be alive in Gaza.
Over the past several months, Trump has repeatedly made public comments suggesting that fewer hostages than the official Israeli number are alive, leading to panic among hostage families who have not been updated on such developments.
For several weeks, Israel has insisted that the number of hostages it believes are alive remains at 20, though officials have acknowledged that there are grave concerns regarding one or two of them.
Hamas and other terror groups are also holding the bodies of 38 other hostages, though Trump incorrectly tells Fox News that “there are 34 that are dead.”
“I told Hamas, we want our hostages back. We have all the Americans back, but now I’m talking about hostages, mostly Israeli,” Trump said during an interview on Fox & Friends. Two of the bodies still held by Hamas are of American citizens Omer Neutra and Itay Chen.
Trump asserted that there would not be any more partial hostage release deals, but said “those final 20 or 10 are going to be tough” to release.
Trump went on to assert that the US will solve the situation in Gaza.
Politico reported Thursday that Trump’s administration is growing frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after Israel attempted to eliminate Hamas leaders in Qatar while they were said to be gathered to discuss a US-proposed framework for a hostage release deal earlier in the week.
“Every time they’re making progress, it seems like he bombs someone,” a person close to Trump’s national security team told Politico. “That’s why the president and his aides are so frustrated with Netanyahu.”
On Friday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum demanded an immediate meeting with Netanyahu amid the developments.
“This week, you ordered to blow up the negotiations, in addition to your illogical order to conquer Gaza City. You are, time after time, putting our loved ones in danger of death and disappearance, and endangering the lives of the soldiers without a goal or purpose,” the statement read.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 26 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Among the bodies held by Hamas is an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March 2024, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May 2024 as a “gesture” to the United States.
The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 51 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
Hamas said last month, after rejecting previous offers for a phased hostage-truce deal, that it had accepted a US proposal that Israel had sought for several months.
However, the development came after Jerusalem had already changed its position, declaring it would no longer accept a phased deal and would only negotiate for the release of all the hostages at once.
The terror group has said it is willing to end the war, but has not accepted Israel’s conditions, which include Hamas’s disarmament, the demilitarization of Gaza, and a new government for the Strip that includes neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.