Washington (TDI): US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that new talks were in the works aimed at getting more hostages released from Hamas captivity in Gaza.
“We are working now on another agreement that we hope will succeed, and we are determined to getting all the hostages freed,” Netanyahu told journalists in the Oval Office.
Trump, for his part, said: “We are trying very hard to get the hostages out. We are trying for another ceasefire deal, we will see what happens.”
Netanyahu said that “the hostages are in agony, and we want to get them all out”.
He highlighted an earlier hostage release deal negotiated in part by Trump’s regional envoy Steve Witkoff that “got 25 out”.
Netanyahu’s visit to the White House follows the collapse of Israel’s 6-week truce with Palestinian group Hamas, whose fighters launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that triggered Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza.
The Israeli campaign in response has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, and destroyed nearly the whole of Gaza.
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The death toll is feared to be much higher as thousands still missing under the rubble.
The fragile ceasefire ended with Israel’s resumption of air attacks on Gaza on March 18.
The recent truce had allowed the return of thirty-three Israeli hostages, 8 of whom were dead, in exchange for the release of about 1,800 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
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Netanyahu and his government insist — against the advice of most hostage families — that increased military pressure is the only way to force Hamas to free the remaining hostages.
Of the 251 hostages abducted during Hamas’s October 7 attack, fifty-eight remain in captivity in Gaza, including thirty-four who the Israeli military says are dead.
