Israeli president calls Elon Musk to revive Gaza hostage talks

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Israel’s President Isaac Herzog spoke to Elon Musk this week in a bid to enlist the world’s richest man to keep the stalled negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages on the incoming Trump administration’s agenda.

The conversation, which took place at the urging of some of the families of hostages still being held by Hamas, was part of Herzog’s “wide and fairly extensive efforts to apply pressure on all parties”, a person familiar with the conversation said. About 100 hostages, more than a third of whom are believed to be dead, are still held in the besieged enclave.

The unconventional outreach to Musk, who has no official role involving the Middle East in President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, underlines both Musk’s outsize role during the transition period and the lengths to which the desperate families of hostages must resort to inject urgency into the issue.

While it’s unclear what day Musk and Herzog spoke, Trump posted on his social network Truth Social on Monday evening that if the hostages are not released by the time he takes office on January 20 “there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East”.

Trump has spoken multiple times to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since winning the election — even hosting Netanyahu’s wife and son at his Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this week — and to Herzog, who has a ceremonial role in Israeli politics.

In an earlier conversation on November 11, Herzog “emphasised the urgent need to secure the return of the Israeli hostages”, according to his office.

The latest conversation between Musk and Herzog was of a “general nature, and from a policy to . . . put pressure wherever pressure can be placed to keep the issue” front and centre, the person familiar with the conversation said. The call was first reported by Israel’s Channel 12.

The person said the call was not simply an attempt to influence Trump. “Musk’s role in the Trump camp is one thing but he is also the key figure of one of the most important social media platforms for awareness and narrative,” they said.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hamas took 250 people hostage in its surprise October 7, 2023 raid on Israel, which killed 1,200 people, according to local officials. While dozens were released in a brief Israeli hostage-for-Palestinian prisoner swap in November that year, the rest have remained captive despite many failed rounds of indirect negotiations between the US and Israel with mediators Egypt and Qatar.

Seven of the remaining hostages also hold American nationality, although five of them are believed to be dead.

Trump has blamed outgoing US President Joe Biden for failing to secure the release of the hostages, and is banking on a renewed set of negotiations to succeed. This could repeat the spectacle of the release of US diplomats held hostage in Iran under Jimmy Carter, who were freed as Ronald Reagan took power in 1981.

Negotiations have stalled over Hamas’s demand that the staggered release of all the hostages accompany assurances that Israel’s war in Gaza will simultaneously wind down and eventually end.

Netanyahu has resisted this, sparking street protests in Israel as more hostages either die from their injuries, from Israeli bombings or are executed by Hamas as IDF forces close in on their locations.

But this last week a tentative new approach was made, according to two people familiar with the situation. They said Ronen Bar, chief of Israeli domestic intelligence service Shin Bet, conveyed to Egyptian intelligence that Israel would agree to a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of the female hostages, wounded and elderly.

Hebrew media reported that Israel would consider releasing Palestinian prisoners convicted of killing Israeli citizens, and currently serving life sentences, in the swaps.

Israeli and US negotiators hope that the killing earlier this year of Hamas chief Yahyeh Sinwar, and the continued military pressure on the militant group, will force it to soften its demand for a complete end of hostilities.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 42,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to local health officials, displaced most of the entire 2.3mn population in the besieged enclave and triggered a severe hunger crisis.

An international diplomat, who had been briefed by the Egyptians on the approach, said the format was similar to the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hizbollah, which is also initially 60 days in length but designed to lead to a permanent settlement.

Additional reporting by Joe Miller