Today, 16 more people have been returned to their families after being held hostage by Hamas for more than 50 days. Among them, is Liat Beinin—a high school teacher, a guide at Israel’s Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem, and an American. Jill and I are deeply gratified that she will soon be reunited with her three children and her father, who have been wracked with worry for her safety. And we remain determined to secure the release of every person taken hostage by Hamas during its brutal terrorist assault on Israel on October 7, including Liat’s husband Aviv.

The deal to pause the fighting in Gaza and facilitate the release of hostages—a deal the United States worked intensively to secure, sustain, and extend—is now in its sixth day. This deal has delivered meaningful results. Nearly 100 hostages have been returned to their loved ones. And the United States has led the international community to use this pause to accelerate the delivery of additional humanitarian assistance into Gaza.  More than 200 trucks loaded with aid, including food, water, medicine, shelter supplies, fuel, and cooking gas, have entered Gaza each of the last few days. For the first time since this conflict began, aid reached northern Gaza. And yesterday, the United States airlifted more than 54,000 pounds of medical equipment and food aid to the humanitarian distribution center in Egypt—the first of three deliveries of critical supplies that will go to civilians in Gaza who need our help.

I thank Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, Amir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar, and President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt for their continued partnership in this process and their ongoing commitment to bring every hostage home and to get more aid to the innocent people of Gaza. 

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