WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he believes all the hostages held in Gaza, including the bodies of those deceased, will be “coming back” Monday after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire.
“So much is happening to get the hostages freed, and we think they’ll all be coming back on Monday, so it looks like that’s the thing, and that’ll include the bodies of the dead,” Trump said in a phone interview on Fox News.
The Republican president spoke late Wednesday, hours after he announced the 20-point peace plan aimed at ending two years of a brutal war that left Gaza in ruins and unleashed a humanitarian disaster.
Under the plan, Palestinian militant group Hamas would release all hostages while Israel would pull its troops back to an agreed-upon line, Trump said after talks in Egypt resulted in an agreement.
He was quick to suggest the deal could ripple through the region, to even include contributions from Israel’s and Washington’s longtime foe Iran.
“This is more than Gaza, this is peace in the Middle East,” he told Fox, adding he believes “Iran is going to be actually a part of the whole peace situation.”
“The world has come together around this deal,” he continued, saying it was “great for Israel, so great for Muslims, for the Arab countries, and so great for this country.”
The American leader has long suggested the Palestinian enclave along the Mediterranean Sea could eventually be rebuilt into a flourishing hub if tensions in the region ease, and he hinted at those hopes again Wednesday, adding that the United States would be involved.
Gaza is “going to be a place that reconstructs, and other countries in the area will help it reconstruct, because they have tremendous amounts of wealth, and they want to see that happen,” he said.
“And we’ll be involved in helping them make it successful and helping it stay peaceful.”
Trump says he thinks Gaza hostages will be ‘coming back’ Monday
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Trump says he thinks Gaza hostages will be ‘coming back’ Monday
- The Republican president spoke late Wednesday, hours after he announced the 20-point peace plan aimed at ending two years of a brutal war that left Gaza in ruins and unleashed a humanitarian disaster
- Under the plan, Palestinian militant group Hamas would release all hostages while Israel would pull its troops back to an agreed upon line
US lawmakers press Israel to probe strike on reporters in Lebanon
- “The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said
- Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured
WASHINGTON: Several Democratic lawmakers called Thursday for the Israeli and US governments to fully investigate a deadly 2023 attack by the Israeli military on journalists in southern Lebanon.
The October 13, 2023 airstrike killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded six other reporters, including two from AFP — video journalist Dylan Collins and photographer Christina Assi, who lost her leg.
“We expect the Israeli government to conduct an investigation that meets the international standards and to hold accountable those people who did this,” Senator Peter Welch told a news conference, with Collins by his side.
The lawmaker from Collins’s home state of Vermont said he had been pushing for answers for two years, first from the administration of Democratic president Joe Biden and now from the Republican White House of Donald Trump.
The Israeli government has “stonewalled at every single turn,” Welch added.
“With the Israeli government, we have been extremely patient, and we have done everything we reasonably can to obtain answers and accountability,” he said.
“The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said, referring to the Israeli military, adding that it has told his office its investigation into the incident is closed.
Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured.
“But I’d also like them to put pressure on their greatest ally in the Middle East, the Israeli government, to bring the perpetrators to account,” he said, echoing the lawmakers who called the attack a “war crime.”
“We’re not letting it go,” Vermont congresswoman Becca Balint said. “It doesn’t matter how long they stonewall us.”
AFP conducted an independent investigation which concluded that two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area in Israel.
The findings were corroborated by other international probes, including investigations conducted by Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
Unlike Welch’s assertion Thursday that the Israeli probe was over, the IDF told AFP in October that “findings regarding the event have not yet been concluded.”
