President-elect Donald J. Trump said Tuesday that “all hell will break loose in the Middle East” if hostages held by Hamas are not released by Inauguration Day, repeating the threat four times during a wide-ranging news conference at his headquarters. Mar-a-Lago Estate in Florida.
“If they don’t come back when I take office, all hell will break loose in the Middle East,” he told reporters. “And it won’t be good for Hamas, and frankly it won’t be good for anyone. All hell will break loose. I don’t have to say anything else, but that’s how it is.”
Trump has not said what actions he might take if the hostages are not released before he takes office. And he declined to provide details about what he or his advisers are doing in the days leading up to the inauguration. Officials say about 100 hostages, including some Americans, seized on October 7, 2023, remain captive in Gaza, although they believe many of them may have died in captivity.
“They should never have taken them,” Trump told reporters. “The attack on October 7th should never have happened. People forget it. But there was, and many people were killed.”
President Biden and his top national security aides have worked for months to try to negotiate the release of the remaining hostages. A deal appeared imminent several times, only to fall apart after what Biden administration officials said was a pushback from Hamas negotiators. Israeli officials also objected to some parts of the proposed agreements.
During his speech, Trump suggested that his threats against Hamas would cause the group to give in. But Middle East experts have struggled to understand the significance of Trump’s threats.
“I have no idea, and neither does he,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, the American ambassador to Israel during the George W. Bush administration.
Over the past 15 months, the Israeli army has all but destroyed Hamas as an organized fighting force. It is unclear what further intensified attacks by the future Trump administration, or Israel, might achieve.
“I don’t see any scenario in which US forces would be engaged; in any case, we have no better idea than the Israelis about what might force Hamas’s hand,” Kurtzer added. “Aggression is the worst form of politics.”
Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator, said it was unclear what Trump might do if the hostages were not released by the deadline. And he wondered whether Trump will be able to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a deal.
“Trump will never be able to inflict as much pain on Hamas and the Palestinians as Israel has already done,” Miller said. “He has influence over Netanyahu. But would he really use it to pressure Israel into accepting the terms of a deal that might seem advantageous to Hamas?”
At one point Tuesday, the president-elect invited Steve Witkoff, who he plans to appoint as his Middle East envoy, to speak to reporters. Witkoff said negotiators were “making a lot of progress,” but provided no details.
“And I don’t want to say too much, because I think they’re doing a really good job,” Witkoff said. “I’m really confident that by the inauguration we’ll have some good things to announce on behalf of the president.”
Witkoff seemed to praise the Biden administration’s efforts, saying that “I really believe we’re working in tandem in a really good way.” But he also took aim at Trump, saying it was the president-elect’s “stature” and “the red lines he has put in place that have driven this negotiation.”
Witkoff added that he will “leave tomorrow” to return to Doha, where delegations from Israel and Hamas have been negotiating through Qatari mediators. It is unclear what role, if any, Mr. Witkoff played in those talks.
The reality of a change of administration in the United States has complicated the desperate efforts of Biden and his advisers to secure a deal to release the hostages. The families of those still detained have urged Biden and Trump officials to work together to achieve this goal.
Biden’s national security officials have said they will keep their Trump counterparts fully informed about the negotiations. And members of both teams appear aligned behind the same goal: to use the settlement deadline to pressure Hamas to release everyone in its arms.
But if a release were to occur, the two administrations are likely to be sharply divided over who deserves praise.
Trump and Witkoff’s comments on Tuesday appear to have been designed, at least in part, so that the president-elect can claim credit for a release if it occurs shortly before his inauguration. Witkoff told reporters that he believed Hamas was listening to Trump.
“He urges us to speak emphatically, and emphatically means you better understand it – you better do it,” he said, adding that Hamas is not waiting for Trump to take office. “I think they heard it loud and clear. Better to do it before the inauguration.”
Biden aides said Witkoff and Brett McGurk, the Biden administration’s chief negotiator, spoke regularly and that the discussions were “constructive” and “appropriate.” Mr. McGurk was the chief negotiator who worked to bring the two sides to an agreement.
This contact shows that “the Biden and Trump teams are much more coordinated than, for example, the Obama and Trump teams were in late 2016 and early 2017,” said Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
But Biden officials have argued that progress toward a deal is the result of months of in-depth discussions and Israel’s intense bombing of Hamas.
Israel’s bombing of Gaza – which has come under intense scrutiny from many parts of the world because it killed tens of thousands of people – has severely damaged Hamas and left most of its leaders dead, including Yahya Sinwar and the masterminds of the October 7 attacks. Israel’s attacks on Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have further isolated Hamas, Biden officials say.
They also note that the deal currently under consideration with Hamas is based on a deal that Biden offered to Israel and Hamas in May and which was later approved by the United Nations Security Council.
Mr. Miller said it would be unusual for a member of an incoming administration, like Mr. Witkoff, to be a direct party to sensitive negotiations with foreign countries.
“It’s fascinating that today he said ‘we’re making progress,’” Miller said, referring to Witkoff. “He inserted himself – as Trump did – into a negotiating process owned by the Biden administration and in which they have no official role. And obviously they are preparing the ground to claim credit for the agreement when that happens.”