Israel is still holding onto hope as negotiations continue in Cairo for the release of hostages still held by Hamas two years after the Oct. 7 attacks, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, the Israeli Special Envoy for Trade & Innovation and a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, told Newsmax on Tuesday.
“We’re two years after the worst attack in modern history, certainly the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust,” Hassan-Nahoum told “Newsline.” “And we all can’t believe that there are still 48 hostages, 20 of them still alive, held by this terrorist group called Hamas.”
She noted that U.S. envoys have been tasked with securing a deal. “They’ve been given a very simple instruction — don’t come back without a deal. And so I have hope, but we all have hope here that they can pull it off,” she said.
Hassan-Nahoum said President Donald Trump is applying pressure on Arab states that have supported Hamas.
“Qatar is a funder of the terrorist group Hamas,” she said. “And so if President Trump has managed to put enough pressure on Qatar, on Turkey, these are countries that fund and enable the terrorists, then perhaps this time will be different.”
She tied the current talks to the legacy of Trump’s Abraham Accords, which normalized ties between Israel and several Arab states.
“This all started with President Trump’s Abraham Accords in his first administration. That was the most significant piece of diplomatic work for decades,” she said.
Hassan-Nahoum argued that Palestinian leaders have repeatedly rejected statehood proposals.
“They were offered two states five times. If they wanted to have had a state, they would have had one by now. But they were much more invested always in the destruction of our state,” she said.
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