US President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One, during his flight from Riyadh to Qatar, that he thinks his visit to the Gulf states is also beneficial to Israel - and claimed that if it were not for the action of the US government, all the hostages would be dead.
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""This visit is very beneficial to Israel - my relationship with these countries is good for Israel," he said.
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When asked if Israel deserves credit for the recent deal in which hostages were released, Trump said: "They fought for a long time, they deserve a lot of credit, my people deserve a lot of credit too, maybe the most.".
He said, "Without us, all the hostages would probably be dead. There are probably 20 hostages alive now. We took out many.".
Regarding the release of Idan Alexander, he said that his family thanked him.
According to a report in 'Kan News', Trump referred to the lifting of sanctions on Syria and said: "We were in contact with Israel regarding the lifting of sanctions on Syria. The reason we did it is because the move is popular in the Middle East. In addition, the reason I did it is because I spoke with Erdogan and Mohammed, who saw the move in a positive light.".
When asked if Prime Minister Netanyahu was happy with the move, he replied: "Turkey thinks we should do it, and others think not.".
President Trump was asked whether he was considering secondary sanctions on Iran's oil exports, and said he did not want to answer that this week.
When asked if he would impose sanctions on Russia, because of its support for Iran and the war in Ukraine, he replied: "We always consider secondary sanctions. October 7 would not have happened if we had announced secondary sanctions. There was no money for Hamas or Hezbollah. I have announced secondary sanctions against Iran again. I hope they make the right choice. Something will happen one way or another. They cannot get nuclear weapons. Either we do it in a friendly way or we do it in a very unfriendly way.".
