U.S. President Donald Trump's new foreign policy team has already begun working on formulating the second phase of the cease-fire in Gaza, which should lead to the release of the rest of the hostages and a permanent cease-fire in the Strip.
According to a report on the Politico website, Trump's people admitted that there may be difficulties on the way to the next phase - and blamed the previous administration of Joe Biden. “What Biden left us with is the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end,” said one official involved in the negotiations.
On Tuesday night, Trump was asked if he planned to travel to the Middle East, and said: "We’re thinking about going to the Middle East — not yet. We have a thing called ‘the hostages are coming back’ going on right now. Some of them were badly hurt. You see this young woman with her hand that was shot . It was terrible. If I weren’t here, that they wouldn’t be back ever. They would all be dead. If it had been done a year earlier, if Biden had done it a year and a half, two years earlier, it wouldn't have happened."
"October 7th was not supposed to happen. But through weakness, they let it happen. It's a disaster. JYou go back just six months, many of these young people were living, there were 11 more hostages alive," Trump said.
"You know, young people don't die like that at 22-23, but now they're dying, And you wonder why they're dying; they're being killed, really killed, and they're just dying. But Biden couldn't make it end, and it was only when I set a deadline - they did it," Trump continued. "It's a very sad situation. It should never have happened."
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Trump referred to Emily damari's fingers, that were blow off on October 7 before she was taken hostage
According to Trump, what is happening in the Middle East would not have happened under him. "Iran would have been poor, they had no money. There was no money for Hamas and there was no money for Hezbollah. October 7 would not have happened, but these are the cards that were dealt to me - and we're getting the hostages back - which would never have happened under Biden. They would never have come back, they just died slowly," he said.
According to the report, Trump's people plan to emphasize and prioritize efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those who will deal with this will be Trump's new Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and his national security adviser Mike Walz - who said last week that this is a priority for the new administration in Washington.
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As part of the deal, the first phase of the deal includes a 42-day cease-fire was during which 33 hostages from categories defined as "humanitarian" – such as women, the elderly and the sick – will be released in stages, while in the second phase the remaining live hostages are to be released, and in the third phase the bodies of the dead hostages.
Negotiations on the second phase will not begin until the 16th day of the first phase, and in order to reach it, Hamas is demanding an end to the war and a complete withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza – while Israel will demand the end of Hamas rule and the exile of its leaders, and insists that it can return to fighting if the negotiations fail.