Gazans react to Trump’s comments about the hostages

For more than a year, millions of Palestinians living in Gaza have been homeless, facing severe food and medicine shortages, and under the constant threat of Israeli air strikes. Local health officials said on Wednesday that nearly 46,000 Gazans had been killed in an area that had been largely reduced to rubble.

So when President-elect Donald J. Trump Pledge to do so ‘All hell will break loose in the Middle East’ If hostages taken from Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023 are not released in the next two weeks, Gazans have been left wondering: If this is not hell, then what is?

Alaa Essam, 33, from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, said: “I am not sure he understands the situation here – it is truly hell.”

Negotiations to end the war between Israel and Hamas have reached a dead end, leaving civilians in Gaza caught in the crossfire with little hope for the future.

Issam said: “We have been killing for 15 months.” “We went through two cold winters in tents, and two hot summers that spoiled our food. We were subjected to famine and people died of hunger, in addition to constant brutal bombing everywhere.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump said: “I don’t want to hurt the negotiations” on the hostage exchange and a ceasefire agreement that is still under discussion. Mr. Trump The next supreme envoy to the Middle East Steven Witkoff is expected to join those talks in Doha, Qatar, later this week.

But Mr. Trump was clear about threatening consequences if Hamas refuses to release about 100 remaining hostages — at least a third of whom are presumed dead — who were taken from Israeli territory and held since the militant group led the attack on Israel.

He added: “It would not be good for Hamas, and it would not be good, frankly, for anyone.” Trump added: “If the agreement is not reached before I take office, which will now take two weeks, all hell will break loose in the Middle East.”

His comments on Wednesday resonated throughout Gaza, including with some civilians who questioned why the Palestinians and not Israel would be punished if a hostage agreement is not reached by January 20, when Mr. Trump is inaugurated.

Akram Al-Satri, 47, a freelance translator from Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, said he found it strange that Mr. Trump “does not realize that Gaza is deprived of all forms of life, and that he thinks he can add to that.” That hell, while Israel spared no effort in turning the lives of the people of Gaza into something much uglier than hell.

He added: “All of us who watch bombs falling on our heads every day” were living “a reality more destructive and miserable than hell.”

While most Gazans blame Israel mainly for the death and destruction around them,… Many also say they hold Hamas responsible To start the war.

Several Gazans interviewed on Wednesday said they feared a continuation of the pro-Israel policies Mr. Trump pursued in his first term, from 2017, into 2021.

In those years, the US Embassy in Israel was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which the Palestinians also claim as their capital, and the United States also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967.