As President-elect Donald Trump prepares for his White House return, a long-awaited Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal is unfolding — offering hope to hostage families, despite some acknowledging it as a “deal with the devil.”
“Before President Trump was elected, it [the deal] was stuck,” Ronen Neutra, whose son Omer was killed by Hamas terrorists, told Fox News on Sunday.
“Let’s face it, the fact that President Trump had a clear message, ‘By my inauguration, I want to see hostages coming out, or else there will be hell to pay,’ made a huge impact in the Middle East, and we are hopeful that with his leadership, we’re going to see all 98 hostages coming out starting today with the three female hostages.”
“We know their family, and we are so emotionally involved in this as well and thrilled to see them coming out,” he said.
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Trump promised “all hell to pay” if remaining Hamas captives were not released by his inauguration date in a Truth Social post last year. The message offered a glimmer of hope to some captives’ families, including one who called the message “exactly the type of language we were missing.”
Ronen and his wife Orna’s son Omer, an IDF tank platoon commander and American from Long Island, New York, who had long been thought to be one of Hamas’ captives, was recently determined to have been murdered by the terror group on Oct. 7, 2023.
His parents, who have remained outspoken about their demands for hostages to be returned safely, plan to attend Trump’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
Ahead of the ceremony, female hostages Doron Steinbrecher, Romi Gonen and Emily Damari were released in phase one of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal on Sunday.
Orna Neutra reacted to the release during the special pre-inaugural Sunday broadcast of “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
“We’ve become one family, all the hostage families. We’ve been going through this crazy roller coaster of emotions for 15 months now, and we’ve heard so much about these young women. We’ve gotten really close to their families, and we’re very, very, very excited and full of anticipation of meeting them and hopefully seeing them rehabilitate and continue with their lives,” she said.
Additional hostage releases are slated to come with phase two.
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Palestinians are similarly celebrating the cease-fire deal in Gaza.
“This is a deal with the devil,” Ronen Neutra said. “These people, terrorists, killed 1,200 people in one day — the worst day in Israeli history since the Holocaust, and they killed, at that moment, 45 Americans, so of course, it’s terrible to see them celebrating right now, but you know what? We celebrate because we believe in the dignity of life. They believe in the dignity of death, and we believe that every soul is important. Those are our values, and we’ll fight for them, and we’ll bring all the 98 people back with the leadership of President Trump.”
“We trust him. We know he is going to do it,” he added. “We know he’s going to push all the partners in the region, in the Middle East, to make sure that those 98 are coming back — among them, our son. We have to bring our son to a proper burial. He deserves it.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
