‘We are bringing back our hostages from Gaza,’ Trump says in address to Congress
US president briefly mentions issue during lengthy speech attended by several former captives, who are in DC to meet with officials; says ‘We’re going to build on Abraham Accords’
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
With several former Israeli hostages in the audience, US President Donald Trump briefly highlighted his efforts to secure the release of captives from Gaza during an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.
“In the Middle East, we are bringing back our hostages from Gaza,” Trump said.
After considerable anticipation in Israel, that ended up being his only remark on the issue in the entire speech, which, at just over an hour and 40 minutes, set a record for the longest presidential address to a joint session of Congress.
While a handful of individuals in the audience received personal shout-outs from Trump throughout the speech, none of the former hostages — among whom was US-Israeli citizen Keith Siegel — enjoyed such attention.
Siegel’s wife, Aviva, was spotted in the House gallery, as were fellow former hostages Noa Argamani and Iair Horn, along with Ronen Neutra, the father of slain American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra. Each member of the group was wearing a yellow scarf symbolizing the plight of the captives in Gaza.
On Sunday, Sharon Sharabi announced that the recently released hostage Eli Sharabi, his brother, would be departing for Washington the next day to meet with Trump, who had been shown an interview Sharabi gave last week about the difficult conditions of his captivity.
The Hostage Family Forum said that Sharabi, along with fellow former hostages Doron Steinbrecher, Naama Levy, Omer Shem Tov, Horn and both Siegels, would be meeting with Trump administration officials, without specifying whether the president himself would be among them.
Hostage families have called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stick to the agreement that he signed in January, rejecting his efforts to rework the deal rather than proceed with its second phase, which was supposed to start on Sunday. The delegation of hostages is expected to stress this message during their meetings in Washington this week.
Trump was instrumental in bringing the hostage deal across the finish line after many months of dragged-out negotiations under the previous administration. Diplomats from Arab mediating countries have told The Times of Israel that Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff managed to move Netanyahu more in a single meeting on January 11 than former US president Joe Biden had during the entire war.
In recent weeks, though, Trump has appeared to move away from the phased framework he helped to finalize, growing frustrated with Hamas’s hostage release ceremonies and suggesting that Israel should return to fighting.
On Saturday, Israel announced that it had accepted what it called a Witkoff proposal that would abandon the current framework in favor of an extension of the ceasefire encompassing the Ramadan and Passover holiday period, during which the remaining hostages would be released in two batches.
Hamas has rejected the proposal, insisting that the sides stick to the framework that was agreed to in January. That deal required the sides to begin negotiations regarding the terms of the second phase on February 3, but Israel has largely refused to do so, as phase two envisions the remaining living hostages being released in exchange for a permanent end to the war — something Netanyahu is refusing to accept before Hamas surrenders or is completely dismantled.
As phase one drew to a close on Saturday, Netanyahu announced that he would be halting the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The White House got behind the move, saying it endorsed Israel’s stance in the negotiations more broadly. Israel has threatened to return to the war if Hamas doesn’t accept the “Witkoff proposal.”
A return to the war would likely further reduce chances for an Israel-Saudi normalization deal, which Trump has pledged to broker and mentioned in his speech on Tuesday.
“In my first term, we achieved one of the most groundbreaking peace agreements in generations — the Abraham Accords — and now we’re going to build on that foundation to create a more peaceful and prosperous future for the entire region,” he said.
Riyadh has insisted that it will not sign such a deal without Israel agreeing to establish a Palestinian state — a nonstarter for Netanyahu and his hardline government. Saudi Arabia has also intensified its criticism of Israel in recent weeks, infuriated over Netanyahu’s claim that it should host Palestinians from Gaza, in the latest indication that normalization is becoming less likely.
“A lot of things are happening in the Middle East… [it’s a] rough neighborhood,” Trump said.
The only other Israel mention in a speech that largely focused on domestic policy came when Trump said he was asking Congress to “fund a state-of-the-art golden dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland.”
He mentioned this initiative repeatedly on the campaign trail last year.
“Other places have it — Israel has it,” Trump said. “We should have it. We want to be protected.”
In his first address to Congress since returning to power, Trump declared that “America is back,” while hailing his billionaire adviser Elon Musk. He drew instant Democratic hostility as he touted his radical social and economic policies.
One Democratic congressman, Al Green, was ejected because he refused to stop heckling, claiming Trump has no mandate to dismantle healthcare programs, and shaking his walking stick at the president.
Other Democrats silently held up placards including “False” and “Musk steals” and “That’s a lie!”
And at one moment, numerous Democrats yelled “January 6!” at Trump, referring to his supporters’ violent attack on the Capitol in 2021 after he refused to concede his election loss to Biden.
The Republican president was unfazed, hailing his first six weeks and vowing to press on with his polarizing bid to reshape the US government and end the Ukraine war — whatever the cost.
Trump reverted to his tried-and-tested reality TV instincts. At one point, he called attention to a boy with brain cancer who dreamed of becoming a policeman and — in front of Congress — was handed an official ID by the head of the Secret Service.
But in what mostly sounded like a campaign speech rather than an address to the nation, Trump made no attempt to reach out to opponents.
He got big cheers from supporters on pronouncing that his culture war on diversity programs and transgender rights meant “our country will be woke no longer.”
He claimed that he was trying to resolve an “economic catastrophe,” despite actually inheriting the strongest developed economy in the world from his predecessor.
He defended his disruptive economic moves — even as the trade war he launched against Canada, China and Mexico is prompting jitters on world markets.
After a torrent of warnings that tariffs will badly hurt US exporters, including politically powerful farmers, he conceded they would bring “a little disturbance.”
And after enumerating a series of murders committed by migrants, Trump got big applause when he vowed to “wage war” on Mexican drug cartels.
He said he had just received a letter from Zelensky in which the Ukrainian president said he was “ready” for peace negotiations and could sign a US-Ukraine minerals sharing deal “any time.”
Trump also doubled down on his controversial vows on “taking back” the Panama Canal and getting Greenland from Denmark by “one way or another.”
Well before he had finished, dozens of Democrats had already walked out.
Democrats have so far struggled to counter Trump’s flood-the-zone strategy and his hogging of the news cycle with constant press conferences.
The Democratic rebuttal to Trump’s address was provided by new Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, a 48-year-old former CIA analyst and rising Jewish star in the party.
AFP contributed to this report.
