President-elect Donald Trump is warning Hamas leadership that the United States’s track record of “all talk and no action” regarding the Israeli hostage crisis will end when he enters the White House.
The warning, released Monday via his proprietary social media site, Truth Social, laments the Israeli nationals being “held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East.”
“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 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,” the president-elect 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!”
The statement is the most explicit threat of U.S. military action against Hamas made since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
Terrorists captured 251 Israeli hostages during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. Approximately 63 hostages remain in Gaza. It is unknown how many of them are still alive.
Hamas released a propaganda video Saturday showing Israeli American dual citizen Edan Alexander, 20, stating that he has been in captivity for 420 days. If the message conveyed in the video is true, it would mean it was recorded last week.
Alexander conveys under obvious duress a request for Trump to “use [his] influence and the full power of the United States to negotiate for our freedom.”
“Please do not make the mistake that Biden has been doing,” Alexander says, reading words provided by his captors. “The weapons he has sent are not killing us and the unlawful sieges are not starving us.”
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The U.S. announced last week that it would reconvene peace talks between Israel and Hamas to negotiate an end to hostilities in Gaza. The latest round of negotiations is being overseen in cooperation with Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.
Hamas leaders reportedly visited Cairo this week to speak with Egyptian officials about paths to peace, the latest in over a year of discussions that have amounted to virtually no progress.