Yarden Bibas: Only Trump can convince Netanyahu, Hamas to renew ceasefire-hostage deal

Yarden Bibas says only Donald Trump is capable of bringing back the hostages and ending the war in Gaza, adding that he believes that the US president can convince both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas to reach a deal.

“I think he’s the only one who can stop this war again,” Bibas tells CBS’s 60 Minutes, in his first interview since being released from captivity earlier this year, and after the bodies of his murdered wife and young children were returned several weeks later.

“He has to convince Netanyahu, he has to convince Hamas. I think he can do it,” Bibas says, indicating that both the Israeli premier and the terror group need to be pressured.

Netanyahu broke with most of the hostages’ families — and much of the public — by ordering a resumption of the war on March 18, amid an impasse in negotiations with Hamas.

After the first phase of the deal — which brought about the Bibas’s return — concluded on March 1, Hamas sought to transition to the second phase of the deal, which envisioned the release of the remaining living hostages in exchange for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces and a permanent end to the war.

Netanyahu argued that those latter two conditions would have allowed Hamas to remain in power. He largely refused to hold talks regarding phase two of the deal for a month, before seeking to rework the terms of the deal so that the first phase’s temporary ceasefire could be extended and more hostages could be freed. Hamas refused, leading Netanyahu to resume intensive military operations throughout Gaza, arguing that additional military pressure will lead the terror group to ease its demands.

Asked whether he thinks the strategy will work, Bibas responds emphatically: “No. No.”

Describing the captivity conditions while the war is ongoing, Bibas says, “It’s scary. You don’t know when [Israeli strikes will occur]. And when it happens, you’re afraid for your life.”

“The whole earth would move — like an earthquake, but [I was] underground, so everything could collapse any moment,” he says.

Speaking of the murder of his wife Shiri, four-year-old son Ariel and nine-month-old Kfir, Yarden says, “They were murdered in cold blood — bare hands.”

He says his Hamas captors used to tell him, “‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. You get a new wife, new kids. Better wife, better kids.’ They said that many times.”

Bibas uses the opportunity to highlight the plight of his childhood friends David and Ariel Cunio, who are among the 59 hostages still in Gaza captivity after being kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

“They’re both still in captivity, and I don’t know if they have enough food, enough water, especially now when the war is back on,” Bibas says.

“We did everything together,” he says of himself and David Cunio. “He was with me in every big thing in my life. He was in my wedding.”

“Now I’m having probably the hardest thing… [in] my life, and David is not with me,” Bibas laments.

“I lost my wife and kids. Sharon [Cunio] must not lose her husband,” Bibas asserts.