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Monday, December 23, 2024
Former Biden, Trump officials: Any Gaza hostage deal ‘must include the immediate release of the American Seven’
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Two former US officials, one from the Biden administration and one from Trump’s first term, pen a joint op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling on Hamas to free the seven American citizens it has been holding since October 7, 2023, in the first phase of a potential hostage-truce deal.
“All parties to these negotiations must know that any agreement must include the immediate release of the American Seven. They aren’t a bargaining chip,” write Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Tom Nides, who served as US ambassador to Israel under US President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2023.
“Hamas and their backers must hear the message loud and clear: Release the Americans in the first phase of the deal. All of them. Release the American Seven and remember their names at your holiday celebrations this week: Edan Alexander, Itay Chen, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Gadi Haggai, Judi Weinstein Haggai, Omer Neutra and Keith Siegel,” the WSJ op-ed continues.
“This is the best deal you are ever going to see, Hamas.”
The seven Americans, who are all also Israeli citizens, were among 251 people who were kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
It is believed that 96 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
The Times of Israel Community.