President-elect Donald Trump’s threat of there being “HELL TO PAY” if Hamas does not release the Israeli hostages by his inauguration was welcomed by the father of one of the hostages.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son, Sagui Dekel-Chen, is among the hostages, told the Washington Examiner that he remains optimistic about a possible ceasefire deal that would secure his son’s release.
“I’d like to believe that this can be a game changer in terms of expediting the release of the hostages,” he said of Trump’s threat to Hamas.
The president-elect said Monday that “those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America,” but he did not specify what exactly that could entail.
The elder Dekel-Chen previously told the Washington Examiner that it is his belief that if a deal is not agreed upon by Trump’s inauguration, all of the hostages, his son included, would most likely be dead by then. He maintains that belief to this day. The younger Dekel-Chen is a father of three, the youngest of whom is about to turn 1 and has never met her father.
“All of the hostages are in constant peril, both from the abuse and the neglect that they are receiving from their Hamas captors, the very real and proven possibility that in given situations, their Hamas captors will simply execute them,” he said.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen also expressed concern about the impending winter and how going through a second one in poor conditions with little food and water would impact the hostages’ health.
Sagui Dekel-Chen is one of seven American Israelis held by Hamas. Earlier this week, the Israeli military announced that it had new intelligence to conclude that Omer Neutra, one of the seven Americans, had been killed during the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and Hamas kidnapped his body. Officials had believed he was alive prior to the announcement. Four of the seven Americans are now believed to have been killed, and the other three, including Dekel-Chen, are believed to be alive.
Last week, Hamas released a propaganda video featuring Edan Alexander, one of the Israeli American hostages believed to be alive, and in it, he urged Trump to “negotiate for our freedom.” The reference to Trump’s electoral victory indicates the video was filmed since last month’s election.
Keith Siegel is the other American believed to be alive, while Israeli officials have announced that Itay Chen, and Gadi and Judi Haggai were killed.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to see a ceasefire and hostage deal finalized before he is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025, though it is unclear whether his statement will move the needle for Hamas and Israel, both of whom have refused to concede on certain aspects of a deal.
The Biden administration, for its part, has spent more than a year acting as one of a handful of mediators for these talks, which have at times gotten close but have repeatedly failed to get across the finish line.
One of the major sticking points in the negotiations is Hamas’s demand that an agreement would completely end the war, while Israel’s stance is that it will not end the war until Hamas has been removed from power and the threat it poses to Israel is gone. However, Israeli forces have repeatedly had to go back into areas where they previously fought Hamas to ensure the group cannot reconstitute, which demonstrates both the difficulties of achieving Israel’s objectives as well as the reasons behind them.
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Hamas is believed to be holding about 100 hostages whom they kidnapped nearly 14 months ago, during its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that instigated the war with Israel. It is unclear exactly how many of the hostages are still alive.
The U.S.-designated terrorist group initially kidnapped about 250 people, and more than half were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Hamas has not released any hostages since then, though Israeli forces have carried out a handful of rescue missions, only some of which were successful.