Hillary Clinton meets hostages’ families, urges deal before Christmas, pans Netanyahu

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton met Thursday with a delegation of young people whose parents or siblings are being held hostage by Gazan terror groups, urging them to pressure politicians to release their missing relatives by the Christmas holiday.

A statement released Thursday by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that while Clinton lauded the successes of the IDF campaign in the Gaza Strip since October 7, securing the release of the hostages still in captivity should be top priority.

Meeting in New York, Clinton praised the “important” work that the families and the forum are carrying out, and urged them to continue.

Clinton, who has been vocal in her support for Israel since the beginning of the war, also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being overly concerned with his own political survival during such a tumultuous time for Israel, according to various Hebrew media reports.

According to the reports, 16 representatives from the hostage families forum joined the New York meeting, sharing stories of their loved ones with the former secretary of state.

War erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and seizing over 240 hostages of all ages under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities. The vast majority of those killed and abducted as gunmen seized border communities were civilians.

Hillary Clinton met with hostage families in New York City. pic.twitter.com/2wLPhTLwaN

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) December 21, 2023

In November, Clinton went viral with a long explanation of the situation in Gaza and why she was not calling for a ceasefire.

“Remember, there was a ceasefire on October 6, that Hamas broke by their barbaric assault on peaceful civilians,” she told “The View,” an ABC daytime show. “There was a ceasefire. It did not hold because Hamas chose to break it.”

.@HillaryClinton explains her recent comments on the Israel-Hamas war, where she said that those "calling for a ceasefire do not understand Hamas." https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/16ox87cwIw

— The View (@TheView) November 8, 2023

“Hamas has consistently broken ceasefires over a number of years,” she said on the ABC show, asserting that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

“We should remember over 240 innocent people — not only Israelis — are held hostage [in Gaza],” she said. “This is a multinational hostage situation.”

Clinton’s comments on “The View” came before a weeklong truce in late November saw Hamas release 105 civilian hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian security prisoners. It is believed that 129 hostages remain in Gaza — not all of them alive.