Last updated on January 8th, 2025 at 06:23 am
President-elect Donald Trump renewed a warning message that “all hell would break out in the Middle East” if Hamas doesn’t soon release hostages they’ve held in the Gaza for more than a year.
Hamas took around 250 people hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, when it breached the Israel-Gaza barrier and carried out attacks across southern Israel.
Hamas released around 100 of the captives in exchange for a temporary ceasefire in November of 2023. Since then, Israel has recovered a handful of additional hostages through rescue operations. Other hostages have been killed amid Israel’s extensive military campaign throughout the Gaza Strip.
Around 100 hostages remain in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas has sought a deal to trade their release for a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from the territory. But negotiations have repeatedly faltered.
In a Dec. 2 post to his Truth social media platform, Trump first warned that there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” if the hostages weren’t freed by the time of his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025.
Trump reissued that threat at a Jan. 7, press conference in Palm Beach, Florida. He was joined by Steve Witkoff, his pick to serve as the special presidential envoy for Middle East affairs.
“All hell will break out if those hostages aren’t back,” Trump said again. “I don’t want to hurt the negotiation. If they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East.”
Trump went on to say the result, if the hostages aren’t returned, “will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone.” He did not elaborate on what specific consequences he has in mind nor which parties, beyond Hamas, stand to suffer.
Witkoff, backed Trump’s warning message, and insisted there’s no reason for negotiations to delay.
“I think they heard him loud and clear; better get done by the inaugural,” Witkoff said.
The fighting in the Gaza Strip has already proven costly for the people living there.
The Ministry of Public Health in the Gaza Strip, which operates under the auspices of a Hamas-led territorial government, has reported more than 45,000 people killed and more than 108,000 injured since Oct. 7, 2023. The health ministry doesn’t differentiate between combatants and non-combatants in its figures. The Israeli government, and other international observers have called the accuracy of these figures into question, but Israel hasn’t offered an alternative casualty assessment encompassing both combatant and noncombatant casualties.
Gaza’s health ministry claims to have identified about 40,000 of the casualties from the fighting, of which more than 13,000 have been children, more than 7,000 have been women, and more than 3,000 have been elderly individuals.
International observers have also raised concern over the level of humanitarian aid reaching civilians in the Gaza Strip amid the fighting.
Intensifying the campaign in the Gaza Strip also risks harming the hostages. Hamas has already claimed some of the hostages have been killed by intense Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli military has also acknowledged its ground forces have mistakenly shot and killed some of the hostages.
While Trump has been generally supportive of the Israeli war effort, he has signaled a desire to see the fighting end. In an April 2024 interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump warned that Israel risks damaging its perception on the international stage by widely publicizing its conduct throughout the war.
“They’re releasing the most heinous, most horrible tapes of buildings falling down. And people are imagining there’s a lot of people in those buildings, or people in those buildings, and they don’t like it,” Trump said. “And I don’t know why they released, you know, wartime shots like that. I guess it makes them look tough. But to me, it doesn’t make them look tough. They’re losing the PR war. They’re losing it big.”
Beyond Gaza, Israel has seen renewed fighting over the last year with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and has traded fire with Iranian forces.
The Houthi rebel movement in Yemen has also joined the fray, harassing shipping in the Red Sea and sporadically launching missiles and attack drones at Israel as a means of raising the pressure. U.S. and Israeli efforts to stop these Houthi attacks have faced setbacks, including a recent friendly fire incident in which a U.S. warship shot down an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet
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