President Donald Trump said that the number of living hostages in Gaza has recently fallen from 24 to 21, meaning that three more hostages have been killed since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended in March.
Trump did not identify which hostages have been killed but appeared to say that three hostages had died in the last week, during a period when Israel is ramping up its offensive in Gaza. He made the remarks Tuesday at a swearing-in ceremony for his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who in January brokered the ceasefire during which Hamas released dozens of Israeli hostages.
Trump’s statement also aligns with comments by Sara Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister’s wife, who said in an exchange caught on video last week that “fewer” than 24 hostages were alive.
Her husband corrected her at the time, and on Tuesday, Israeli officials reiterated that the official number of living hostages remains 24. (Hamas is also holding the bodies of 35 hostages.)
At the time the ceasefire ended in mid-March, when Israel resumed airstrikes on Hamas, the terror group held 59 hostages in Gaza, 24 of whom were thought to be alive. New signs of life for many of them came from hostages released at the time.
Trump appeared to say that three of them had died in the past week. Here is what Trump said at the ceremony:
They said, well, only 24 are living, but now it’s 21. That was a week ago. Now it’s 21 are living. And these are young people. Young people don’t die. Old people die. Young people don’t die under these conditions. So, of the 59 people — and they said 59, and I said really — but they said only 24 are living, and I now correct, I say 21. Because as of today, it’s 21, three have died. So this is a terrible situation. We’re trying to get the hostages out. We’ve gotten a lot of them out. As the expression goes, there’s 21 plus a lot of dead bodies.
Israel recently adopted a plan to conquer and occupy Gaza, which the military chief of staff said would put the hostages’ lives at risk.
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