Trump Discusses Meeting With Former Hamas Hostages And The Plight Of Those Remaining In Captivity

Forbes Breaking News

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump discussed the plight of hostages held by Hamas.

Transcript

00:00On Gaza, you said there's been progress and progress in the Middle East.

00:05At the moment, as a colleague said, Israel, Netanyahu is saying he now wants to conquer Gaza.

00:11Is there any prospect of any movement on that? Are you happy with what Netanyahu is doing?

00:14Well, we've done very slowly because we want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible.

00:20And we've done a good job in that regard.

00:23Two weeks ago, I had 10 hostages come in and they thanked me profusely.

00:27And I said, you have nothing to thank me about.

00:29But what they went through is incredible.

00:32They lived in a pipe.

00:33You know, they keep hearing about caves.

00:34It was a pipe three and a half feet high.

00:37And they didn't know if they were going to breathe.

00:39They didn't know if they were going to live to the next day.

00:41They lived like hell.

00:42I couldn't believe the stories I was hearing.

00:44And they weren't grandstanding.

00:46These were people that were seriously mistreated.

00:48One was in for 512 days.

00:51One was in for 361, I guess, days.

00:55And one was in for a shorter period of time.

00:58And the stories were unbelievable.

01:00I said, how many people are left?

01:02How many are left?

01:03They said 59.

01:05I said, oh, wow.

01:07That's more than I thought.

01:08They said, well, only 24 are living.

01:10But now it's 21.

01:12That was a week ago.

01:12Now it's 21 are living.

01:14And these are young people.

01:15These young people don't die.

01:18Old people die.

01:18Young people don't die under these conditions.

01:20So of the 59 people, and they said 59.

01:25And I said, really?

01:27But they said, only 24 are living.

01:31And I now correct.

01:33I say 21.

01:34Because as of today, it's 21.

01:35Three have died.

01:37So this is a terrible situation.

01:40We're trying to get the hostages out.

01:42We've gotten a lot of them out.

01:43As the expression goes, there's 21 plus a lot of dead bodies.

01:48You know, parents came up to me on numerous occasions.

01:51But a couple in particular, they came up to me two weeks ago.

01:54And they said, please, sir, my son is dead.

01:58Please get us back his body.

02:00They wanted his body.

02:02He's dead.

02:02They know he's dead.

02:03They wanted his body as much as you would want the boy if he was alive.

02:08It's a very sad thing.

02:09Thank you very much, everybody.

02:11Thank you, guys.

02:12Thank you, Christ.

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