With Hamas saying it can launch extra hostages this weekend, President Donald Trump has but to weigh in, as he did final week forward of the deliberate Saturday hostage launch threatening “all hell goes to interrupt out” if all hostages weren’t freed by his deadline.
Final week, Trump demanded that if Hamas did not launch “the entire hostages” by midday final Saturday, Feb. 15, Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas would possibly finish, though he wasn’t clear whether or not he was suggesting the U.S. or Israel would act in response.
President Donald Trump throughout a joint press convention within the East Room on the White Home on Feb. 13, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong/Getty Photos
His deadline got here and went, and Hamas launched the three hostages that have been scheduled to be launched on Feb. 15, together with one American, based on the unique ceasefire settlement, in change for 369 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Specialists advised ABC Information that Trump’s feedback made little or no distinction in Saturday’s end result.
“Trump’s risk wasn’t a lot of an ultimatum, since Hamas was not about to launch the entire hostages on Saturday below any situation,” mentioned Man Ziv, affiliate professor at American College’s Faculty of Worldwide Service.
On the heels of this change, Hamas launched the our bodies of 4 Israeli hostages early Thursday morning, although the Israel Protection Forces later mentioned one among our bodies doesn’t belong to a hostage.
What was the context?
“So far as I am involved, if the entire hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock, I believe it is an applicable time. I might say, cancel it and all bets are off, and let hell get away,” Trump mentioned final week. “I am talking for myself. Israel can override it. However from myself, Saturday at 12 o’clock, and if they are not, they are not right here, all hell goes to interrupt out.”
The president’s threats got here after Hamas unexpectedly introduced final week that it was delaying the subsequent hostage launch, accusing Israel of violating the phrases of the ceasefire settlement.
Launched hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, who was seized through the lethal October 7, 2023 assault by Hamas, embraces his spouse as he’s reunited along with his household in Israel, on Feb. 15, 2025.
GPO Handout through Reuters
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that violated the ceasefire deal. He later demanded all 9 residing Israeli hostages, who have been alleged to be launched throughout Section 1 of the ceasefire deal, be launched within the subsequent few days, an Israeli official advised ABC Information final week.
When requested final week about Trump’s deadline and what he meant along with his risk, Trump’s particular envoy to the Center East Steve Witkoff didn’t go into element however advised “CBS Mornings,” “I might take President Trump at his phrase. He usually means what he says … so, I do not suppose it is a tactic.”
These exchanges additionally got here per week after the announcement of Trump’s Gaza plan, by which the president expressed his want to “take over” the Gaza Strip, relocate Palestinians, and redevelop the land. United Nations Secretary Normal Antonio Guterres had responded to this plan, saying “it’s important to keep away from any type of ethnic cleaning.”
The deadline passes
Following the discharge of the hostages final Saturday, Trump turned to his social media platform to say it was as much as Israel on the way to transfer ahead.
“Israel will now must determine what they are going to do concerning the 12:00 O’CLOCK, TODAY, DEADLINE imposed on the discharge of ALL HOSTAGES,” he wrote on Saturday. “America will again the choice they make!”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake palms as they make joint statements to the press on the Prime Minister’s workplace in Jerusalem, Feb. 16, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Early Sunday morning, after a gathering with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Netanyahu emphasised his “cooperation and coordination” with Trump.
“We’ve a standard technique,” he mentioned, “together with when the gates of hell will probably be open, as they certainly will, if all our hostages will not be launched till the final one among them.”
On Sunday, Trump advised reporters, “I advised Bibi, you do no matter you need as a result of, you already know my assertion was they acquired to return again. Now, the explanation I made that assertion was as a result of they mentioned they weren’t gonna ship — they weren’t going to ship the folks that they mentioned they have been going to ship, that they agreed to ship.”
“Once I made the assertion, they delivered everyone, plus an American,” Trump touted, showing to take credit score. In actuality, the three hostages launched Saturday have been a part of the continuing ceasefire deal, together with the discharge of American Sagui Dekel Chen on Feb. 15.
Nationwide safety adviser Mike Waltz repeated the president’s sentiment throughout a press briefing Thursday.
“And when President Trump despatched a really clear message throughout the Center East, however notably to Hamas, that there could be all hell to pay, we out of the blue noticed a breakthrough,” Waltz mentioned.
However Trump’s claims shouldn’t be thought of the ultimate phrase, says one skilled.
“World leaders have realized to closely low cost the phrases of Donald Trump,” Brian Katulis, senior fellow on the Center East Institute, advised ABC Information. Katulis famous extra examples of the president’s previous feedback that he says are stuffed with “sizzling air,” together with Trump’s assertion that he might finish the Russia-Ukraine warfare in someday.
Threatening ‘hell’ for months
In truth, Trump has been threatening Hamas with “hell” for months.
In early December, Trump wrote on his social media platform that “there will probably be ALL HELL TO PAY within the Center East” if hostages weren’t launched previous to his Inauguration day, and that “these accountable will probably be hit tougher than anyone has been hit within the lengthy and storied Historical past of the USA of America.”
A person climbs onto a bus to greet freed Palestinian prisoners after being launched by Israel as a part of a hostages-prisoners swap and a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis, within the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 15, 2025.
Hatem Khaled/Reuters
“If they are not again by the point I get into workplace, all hell will get away within the Center East,” Trump repeated in January when requested concerning the standing of the hostage deal.
“All hell will get away,” he continued. “I haven’t got to say any extra, however that is what it’s.”
Trump’s language has been echoed by aides and supporters.
Showing on Fox Information in December, Trump senior adviser Jason Miller warned, “I might take him actually at his phrase. They may have hell to pay.”
Although he declined to enter specifics, Miller was assured that the president was “very critical on this one.”
Sooner or later earlier than Trump’s inauguration, Home Speaker Mike Johnson mentioned “there will probably be hell to pay for Hamas in the event that they violate these phrases.”
President Donald Trump speaks to the media within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, DC Feb. 12, 2025.
Jim Lo Scalzo/POOL/EPA through Shutterstock
Specialists stay skeptical of Trump’s threats, regardless of their repetition all through the previous few months.
“The true hell that is damaged free is the hell of confusion that comes from Trump’s erratic public statements right here. It serves actually no goal,” Katulis mentioned, arguing that “the true risk would not come from Trump’s mouth, it comes from the weapons and bombs that Israel has.”
“Some have likened Trump’s coercive diplomacy to what [President Richard] Nixon known as his ‘Madman Concept,'” Ziv mentioned. “Trump needs different leaders to imagine that he is prepared to do something, that nothing can restrain him from attaining his aims.”
