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Twenty Israeli hostages returned home alive Tuesday as President Donald Trump stood before the Knesset claiming credit for ending a two-year war that killed nearly 2,000 Israeli soldiers and reshaped the Middle East through military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.
The ceasefire marks the conclusion of fighting that began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel, including dozens of Americans, and dragged hundreds into Gaza. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the hostage deal together, with Netanyahu nominating Trump as the first non-Israeli to receive the Israel Prize, the country’s highest civilian honor.
“Donald Trump is the greatest friend that the state of Israel has ever had in the White House,” Netanyahu told lawmakers. “No American president has ever done more for Israel.”
Twenty-eight bodies of deceased hostages are also being returned as part of the agreement, which Netanyahu said was made possible by “Israel’s military pressure and President Trump’s unmatched global leadership.” The prime minister said Trump succeeded in “doing something that no one believed was possible” by bringing most of the Arab world behind the proposal.
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Trump called the day “the historic dawn of a new Middle East” and announced he would chair a “Board of Peace” funded by wealthy Arab nations to rebuild Gaza. Multiple Arab countries have committed money to reconstruction, though Trump did not specify amounts or nations during his speech.
“After two harrowing years in darkness and captivity, 20 courageous hostages are returning to the glorious embrace of their families,” Trump said. “This is not only the end of a war. This is the end of the age of terror and death.”
Military Operations Preceded Peace Deal
The hostage release followed months of escalating military action, culminating in what Trump called Operation Midnight Hammer — a June strike using seven B-2 bombers and nearly 100 additional aircraft against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The operation involved 52 refueling tankers and lasted 37 hours, Trump said.
“We dropped 14 bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities, totally obliterating them,” Trump told the Knesset. He said Iran was “two months away” from having nuclear weapons before the strike.
Trump credited the bombing with making the ceasefire possible, arguing Arab nations would not have supported the deal if Iran possessed nuclear weapons. The president said Iran’s nuclear program has been “rolled back” and claimed Iranian leaders now “want to survive” rather than restart their weapons program.
Netanyahu detailed Israel’s military victories over the past two years, listing eliminated leaders: “Sinwar, Deif, Haniyeh, Nasrallah, Assad, they’re all gone.” He said half of Houthi leadership in Yemen was also wiped out with American help.
“Our heroic soldiers fought like lions,” Netanyahu said. “They fought on the front lines of civilization and barbarism.”
Casualties and Personal Stories
Nearly 2,000 Israeli soldiers died during the war, Netanyahu said, with close to half killed in combat. He introduced Ari Speets, an American-Israeli who lost three limbs searching for Hamas weapons in Gaza while two of his fellow soldiers were killed and 10 injured in the same operation.
“You are the spirit of Joshua. You are the spirit of David,” Netanyahu told Speets, who stood to applause. “You are the spirit of Israel.”
Netanyahu also highlighted Sabine Tassa of Kibbutz Nir Oz, who lost her husband and oldest son on Oct. 7. Two of her other sons, Cohen and Shai, watched their father jump on a Hamas grenade to save them. Tassa has shown video of her sons’ grief around the world.
“I do it to show the entire world the monsters Israel is fighting and the justice of our cause,” Netanyahu quoted Tassa as saying.
Trump said the Oct. 7 attack represented “the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust” and pledged American support with the vows “never forget and never again.”
Trump’s Team and Political Dynamics
Trump credited his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff with negotiating the deal, calling him “Henry Kissinger, who doesn’t leak.” Witkoff, a real estate executive with no prior diplomatic experience, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for five hours during separate Ukraine negotiations, Trump said.
“Everybody loves Steven,” Trump said. “They respect him, and they somehow can relate to him.”
Trump also thanked his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who created the Abraham Accords during Trump’s first term; Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Trump predicted would be “the greatest Secretary of State in the history of the United States”; and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The president announced he had renamed Hegseth’s position from Secretary of Defense to Secretary of War, arguing the name change during previous administrations led to “politically correct” fighting. Trump said he has “settled eight wars in eight months,” now counting the Israel-Gaza ceasefire.
Trump is traveling directly from Israel to Egypt to meet with Arab and Muslim leaders about reconstruction funding and expanding the Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab nations.
Rebuilding Plans and Regional Dynamics
Multiple Arab nations have pledged funding to rebuild Gaza, Trump said, though he provided no figures or identified specific countries. He said the commitments came from “very wealthy countries” for whom the amounts represent “relatively little relative to their worth.”
“I have many Arab countries, very wealthy countries that came up and said, we’ll put up tremendous amounts of money to rebuild Gaza,” Trump said. “They want dignity. They want to come forward.”
Trump repeatedly urged nations to join the Abraham Accords, which currently include the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. He said those four countries “benefit unbelievably financially” from membership and remained in the accords throughout the recent war.
“We had a very weak administration, worst president in the history of our country by far,” Trump said, referring to President Joe Biden and criticizing his predecessor Barack Obama for the Iran nuclear deal.
Trump offered an opening to Iran, saying “the hand of friendship and cooperation is open” and claiming Iranian leaders “want to make a deal.”
“All I do in my life is make deals,” Trump said. “I know when they want. Even if they said, we don’t want to make a deal, I can tell you they want to make a deal.”
Political Opposition Present
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid attended the speeches, with Trump acknowledging him as “a very nice opposition leader.” Trump joked with Netanyahu about showing more flexibility now that the war has ended.
“You can be a little bit nicer, Bibi, because you’re not at war anymore,” Trump said.
Netanyahu framed the end of fighting in biblical terms, quoting Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. A time for peace, and a time for war.”
“The last two years have been a time of war,” Netanyahu said. “The coming years will hopefully be a time for peace.”
The prime minister said he looks forward to expanding peace treaties with Arab and Muslim countries “beyond the region” under Trump’s leadership, adding, “I believe that with President Trump’s leadership, this will happen a lot faster than people think.”
Trump concluded by noting the timing was “brilliant,” arguing that continuing the war would have turned global opinion further against Israel. The president said he told Netanyahu the ceasefire would cement his legacy more than prolonged fighting.
“It took a lot of guts,” Trump said of Netanyahu’s decision to agree to the ceasefire terms.
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