Ignoring torture of Palestinian detainees, Trump says US might lose patience with ceasefire deal over Israeli captives’ appearance

US President Donald Trump yesterday said he was losing patience with the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas after seeing footage of the Palestinian group releasing Israeli captives over the weekend, whose appearance he compared to Holocaust survivors, Reuters reports.

Trump’s reaction to seeing images of the three captives, who appeared gaunt upon their release on Saturday, brought fresh uncertainty over the deal’s fate before all remaining 76 captives are freed and came days after the president called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the enclave and for the US to take control of it.

“They look like Holocaust survivors. They were in horrible condition. They were emaciated,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl. “I don’t know how much longer we can take that … at some point we’re going to lose our patience.”

“I know we have a deal … they dribble in and keep dribbling in … but they are in really bad shape,” Trump said of the Israeli hostages.

READ: Israel does not treat Palestinian prisoners as human beings: Freed senior leader, Khalida Jarrar

Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, who were taken from Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October 2023, and Or Levy, who was taken from the Nova music festival, were led onto a Hamas podium on Saturday ahead of their release to Israeli occupation authorities.

The three men appeared in worse condition than the 18 other hostages previously freed under the truce, which came into effect on 19 January, 15-months into Israel’s genocidal bombing of the enclave.

During the occupation state’s assault on Gaza, a total siege was imposed on the enclave, limiting the amount of food, water and medical supplies allowed into the Strip. This starvation policy, UN experts warned, “is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.” Dozens of children died as a result of malnutrition, while UN agencies have said at least 19,000 children have been hospitalised for malnutrition. Desperate, Palestinians have resorted to picking grass and weeds to eat and also scavenging through rubbish for scraps of food.

A picture of the Palestinian prisoner Ibrahim Al-Shawish after his release from Israeli prisons yesterday, and the Hebrew media is still talking about the starvation of Israeli prisoners! pic.twitter.com/yinHvAjZcs

— Abdullah Omar🇵🇸 (@Abdullah_Om3r03) February 9, 2025

Despite the severity of conditions on the ground for Palestinians, Israeli captives released to date have been found to be in good health, according to the Red Cross. Palestinians released under the ceasefire deal have, however, appeared thin and emaciated, clearly showing signs of torture and abuse, in addition to deliberately being starved. This has been evident in Palestinian men, women and children who have been held in Israeli prisons. Many Palestinian prisoners have been physically disabled as a result of torture carried out during their detention.

READ: ‘Graveyards for the living’: Freed Palestinian prisoner exposes inhuman conditions in Israeli jails