Trump demands release of Oct. 7 hostages, says otherwise there will be ‘HELL TO PAY’

President-elect Donald Trump is demanding the immediate release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, saying that if they are not freed before he is sworn into office for a second term there will be “HELL TO PAY.”

“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site.

He added that, “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined comment. But the country’s president, Isaac Herzog, welcomed Trump’s comments in a social media post.

“Thank you and bless you Mr. President-elect realDonaldTrump,” he wrote on X. “We all pray for the moment we see our sisters and brothers back home!”

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage on Oct. 7, 2023. Some 100 are still held inside Gaza, around two-thirds believed to be alive.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive for the attack has left at least 44,429 Palestinians dead, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel unleashed its largest wave of airstrikes across Lebanon since agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah last week, killing at least 11 people on Monday after the Lebanese terrorist group fired a volley of projectiles as a warning over what it said were Israeli truce violations.

The projectiles were apparently the first time that Hezbollah took aim at Israeli forces after the 60-day ceasefire went into effect last Wednesday. The increasingly fragile truce aimed to end more than a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel — part of a wider regional conflict sparked by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Haris killed five people and wounded two while another airstrike on the village of Tallousa killed four and also wounded two.

Israel’s military carried out a string of airstrikes late Monday against what it said were Hezbollah fighters, infrastructure and rocket launchers across Lebanon, in response to Hezbollah firing two projectiles toward Mount Dov — a disputed Israeli-held territory known as Shebaa Farms in Lebanon where the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel meet.

Israel said the projectiles fell in open areas and no injuries were reported.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired on an Israeli military position in the area as a “defensive and warning response” after what it called “repeated violations” of the ceasefire deal by Israel. It said complaints to mediators tasked with monitoring the ceasefire “were futile in stopping these violations.”

Officials in the U.S. — which along with France helped broker the truce and heads a commission meant to monitor adherence to the deal — played down the significance of Israeli strikes. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “Largely speaking, the ceasefire is holding.”

“We’ve gone from dozens of strikes down to one a day maybe two a day,” Kirby told reporters, referring to Israeli strikes. “We’re going to keep trying and see what we can do to get it down to zero.”