Netanyahu tells hostage families fall of Assad regime could advance negotiations
Trump says he believes there are ‘far fewer hostages’ alive than thought; senior Biden official says Syria situation has ‘dramatically changed balance of power’ and could help deal
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the family members of hostages held in Gaza that the regime change in Syria could help advance a deal, while US President-elect Donald Trump said he did not believe there were many captives left alive.
Netanyahu met separately on Sunday evening with two different hostage family groups in Jerusalem — the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the majority of families, and the Tikva Forum, which represents a hawkish minority who have been significantly more supportive of the government’s handling of the war than the main forum.
According to Netanyahu’s office, he told the family members that the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria “could help advance a deal to bring back the hostages.”
For more than a year, waves of negotiations have stalled and failed to reach another agreement to return the hostages still held in Gaza, after 105 of them were released in a weeklong truce in late November 2023. Israel believes that 96 of the 251 hostages kidnapped on October 7 are still in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Over the past 14 months, IDF troops have rescued eight hostages and recovered the bodies of 38.
Family members who sat down with Netanyahu in the separate meetings on Sunday indicated that they received slightly differing messages from the prime minister over a potential hostage release deal.
Sharon Sharabi, the brother of hostage Eli Sharabi — whose wife and children were murdered on October 7 — and slain captive Yossi Sharabi, told news outlets after his meeting as part of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum that Netanyahu said “the return of the hostages will only be in a comprehensive deal.”
“He is ready for a ceasefire to advance a deal,” Sharabi told reporters. “What worked in the north can also work in the south,” he said, referring to the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. “He claimed there are reasons to be optimistic. We called on him not to miss any opportunities,” Sharabi added, noting that Netanyahu did not lay out any specifics on any potential deal.
Nadav Miran, the brother of hostage Omri Miran, who met with Netanyahu as part of the Tikva Forum, told reporters that both groups of families told the prime minister “that we need one comprehensive deal. Unfortunately, I can’t say that’s [Netanyahu’s] direction. I believe he supports a deal with stages. He said that a deal for everyone will be very difficult, that nothing like that is in the works.”
Family members and allies demanding an immediate hostage deal briefly blocked Begin Road in Tel Aviv across from the Defense Ministry headquarters in a rally on Sunday evening, a day after thousands took part in several different protests in the city.
Meanwhile, in his first sit-down interview since his electoral victory last month, Trump told NBC News that he does not think many of the remaining hostages held in Gaza are still alive.
“I’m not a big believer in the fact that there are too many of them living, sadly,” he said. “I’ve seen the way they’ve been treated,” he added, recalling a video he had seen of “a young girl that was pulled by her hair violently and thrown into the back of a car like she was a sack of potatoes.”
It was not immediately clear who Trump was referring to, although he could have meant captive IDF soldier Naama Levy, who was seen in video from October 7 being grabbed by her hair and shoved in the back of an IDF vehicle while covered in blood.
“I hate to say it, I think you have far fewer hostages than people think,” Trump told NBC. “It’s only my opinion, but I’ve been right on just about everything.”
Asked whether he would pressure Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza, Trump said: “Yeah. Sure.”
“I want him to end it, but you have to have a victory,” he said. “People forget about October 7… I noticed that a lot of people are saying ‘Oh, it never really happened.’ That’s like the Holocaust,” Trump continued. “You know, you have Holocaust deniers. Now you have October 7 deniers, and it just happened. No, October 7 happened. And I’ve seen the pictures. It is — what happened is horrible.”
Also on Sunday, a senior Biden administration official echoed Netanyahu’s comments that Syrian rebels’ overthrow of Assad could improve the chance of securing a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
In a briefing with reporters, the senior US official said the developments in Syria “dramatically changed the balance of power” in the region, referring to the weakening of Iran and its proxies. Accordingly, the US is intensifying efforts to secure a hostage deal, the official said.
The US has several times over the past year speculated that various developments in the region — including Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and a ceasefire in Lebanon — opened windows to secure a hostage deal. However, negotiations have yet to bear fruit.
Hamas has refused to budge from its demands for a permanent end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in exchange for releasing the remaining 100 hostages, and Israel is insisting that it will only agree to temporary ceasefires along with ones that allow it to initially maintain a troop presence in Gaza.
On Saturday, Qatar’s prime minister said there was renewed “momentum” for a ceasefire and hostage release deal following Trump’s election.
Earlier Sunday, sources within various Palestinian terror groups in Gaza said Hamas had told them to compile information on the hostages they hold in preparation for a potential ceasefire and hostage deal with Israel.
