Donald Trump repeated his warning to Hamas: the “gates of hell” will open if they do not free the hostages they are still holding by his Inauguration on January 20, the President-elect told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday.
The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group took roughly 250 hostages from Israel during the October 7, 2023 terror attack. Over 100 — mostly women and children — were freed during a truce in November 2023, which Hamas broke.
Further negotiations, overseen by the Biden-Harris administration, have gone nowhere. Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted recently that pressure on Israel had encouraged Hamas to pull back from potential hostage deals.
Trump wrote in early December that there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” if Hamas did not free the hostages. He repeated that warning on New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago, and again on Monday. He said that his warning, unlike President Biden’s infamous “don’t” to Iran and Hezbollah in October 2023, would actually be followed through:
Hewitt: And what do you mean, and by the way, to our audience, we’ll be continuing to talk to the President and come right back to us on the Salem News Channel. Mr. President, when you said there’ll be hell to pay if the Americans are still being held hostage, what did you mean?
Trump: Exactly what it says. If those hostages aren’t released by the time I get to office, there will be hell to pay. I don’t think I have to go into it anymore. This, it won’t be the word don’t. You know, I heard the word don’t. You can add that into it, but that would just be a small part of it. No, there will be hell to pay. Those hostages have to get out. They have to get out now.
Trump’s threats have led to a flurry of new negotiations, but Hamas appears to be ambivalent about an agreement, especially as Israel refuses to budge on the question of whether it will allow the terrorist group to govern Gaza again.
Of the remaining 100 hostages, at least half are thought to be alive, including possibly three of the seven Americans.
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.
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