President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly being praised by Arab officials for doing more to move Israel and Hamas closer to a hostage and ceasefire deal than President Joe Biden has done in more than a year since the last truce.
The post Report: Trump Did More to Free Hostages, Reach Ceasefire than Biden Did All Year appeared first on Breitbart.
President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly being praised by Arab officials for doing more to move Israel and Hamas closer to a hostage and ceasefire deal than President Joe Biden has done in more than a year since the last truce.
Trump warned Hamas at the beginning of December that there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” if they did not release all 100 of the remaining hostages, including seven Americans (three of whom are alive) by his Inauguration.
Hamas began to show flexibility, then retreated. But Trump’s future Mideast envoys fanned out across the region, and Trump apparently pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to show greater flexibility as well.
The Times of Israel reported Tuesday:
A “tense” weekend meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and incoming Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff led to a breakthrough in the hostage negotiations, with the top aide to US President-elect Donald Trump doing more to sway the premier in a single sit-down than outgoing President Joe Biden did all year, two Arab officials told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.
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During the 42-day first phase, 33 of the remaining women, children, elderly and severely ill hostages will be released in exchange for roughly 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners. Israel will partially withdraw from Gaza, while helping facilitate the entry of 600 trucks of humanitarian aid into the Strip each day.
The second stage will see the release of the remaining living hostages and conclude with a declaration of a permanent end to hostilities. The third phase will see the release of bodies still held by Hamas.
The deal has yet to be finalized by both sides, and is opposed by important factions on both sides, including by Israelis who believe that all the hostages should be released at once, and that Hamas should not be left in power after a deal.
Trump won the support of Arab- and Muslim-American voters in key states like Michigan by suggesting that he, unlike Biden, could convince Netanyahu to accept deals, because Israel trusts Trump to protect its interests as well.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
