US President Donald Trump on Friday commented on a video from former Israeli hostages, who appealed to him to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu for a ceasefire.
A reporter noted that the hostages believe Trump is the one who "might actually listen to them and get it done" and are concerned that the remaining hostages are "more at risk if the war continues."
Trump responded by saying, "They might be, they also, maybe they'll be freed because of that, you never know." He added, "A lot of strange things happen. A lot of results take place that you would never think were going to happen."
He noted his involvement in prior hostage releases, stating, "I was able to get most of the hostages out. We're down to 20 and we have 32 dead people."
He estimated that there are "very close to 40 bodies that are included in the whole thing, but we have 20, probably 20 that are living." He noted the difficulty of the situation, stating, "I always said the last 20, when you get down to the last 10 or 20, it's going to be very tough. It's a nasty, it's a nasty situation. You can't forget October 7th, but it's a nasty situation. Terrible."
When asked by another reporter about the UN concluding that Israel "committed genocide in Gaza," Trump offered a powerful counterpoint.
"I haven't seen that looking at it, but did anybody commit genocide on October 7th?" he asked. "What do you think about that? That was genocide at the highest level. That was murder, genocide. You can call it whatever you want, but little babies were chopped in half. Arms were cut off. People, heads were cut off. It's genocide. It's genocide also, I guess."
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)