Day before meeting Netanyahu, Trump urges: ‘Finish up’ war, get your hostages back

Republican presidential candidate insists ‘zero chance’ Oct. 7 would have happened on his watch; says people who desecrate US flag should be jailed

Jul 25, 2024

Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump, a day before meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called for a quick end to the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and a return of the hostages, adding that “Israel is not very good at public relations.”

Asked about his plan to end the war in Gaza should he be elected president, the former US president told Fox News on Thursday that he wants Netanyahu to “finish up and get it done quickly… because they are getting decimated with this publicity.”

He also said Israel has “gotta get your hostages back” and that he believes “many of them, maybe, are dead.”

He also reiterated his claim multiple times during the phone interview that Hamas’s October 7 massacre and the ensuing war in Gaza would not have happened if he had been president at the time.

“You know, October 7 would never have happened if I was president. There was no chance. Iran was broke. They had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah. It just wouldn’t have happened. Zero chance,” he said, adding that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the ongoing war there also wouldn’t have happened under his watch.

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Vowing to destroy the terror group and free the hostages, Israel launched a wide-scale military offensive in Gaza, which has raised global ire amid a mounting death toll and concerns about food insecurity in the Palestinian enclave.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and gunmen. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack. It says it takes steps to avoid harming noncombatants, and accuses Hamas of putting civilians in harm’s way by fighting from inside residential areas.

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