Trump: We don’t want to risk hostages’ lives by ‘riding roughshod’; kids are starving, ‘you can’t fake that’

Speaking after meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland, US President Donald Trump says the location of some hostages in Gaza are known to Israel and the US.

“We know where they have them in some cases,” says Trump. “You don’t want to go riding roughshod over that area because that means those hostages will be killed.”

“Now there are some people that would say, well, that’s the price you pay,” he continued. “But we don’t like to say that, we don’t want to say that. And I don’t think the people of Israel want to say that either.”

Trump says that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are in touch to come up with “various plans” to free hostages held in Gaza.

“Hamas has become very difficult to deal with in the last couple of days because they don’t want to give up these last 20, because they think as long as they have them, they have protection,” he says, reiterating comments he has made in recent days referring to the 20 living hostages still being held in Gaza.

“But I don’t think it’s going to work that way,” he adds. He says that the hostages are in “deep trouble.”

Trump says a major priority right now is aid to Gazans, but Hamas is stealing much of it: “Before we get to phase two, which is what’s going to happen afterwards, we want to get the children fed.”

“So much, when you do something there, gets taken by Hamas. Or somebody.”

“The United States will be helping with the food,” he also says. “We have a lot of access to food. We’ve got a lot of food ourselves. We can save a lot of people. Some of those kids — that’s real starvation stuff. I see it. And you can’t fake that.”