“Today’s releases are the start of a process. We expect more captives to be released tomorrow. And more the day after and more the day after that. Over the next few days, we expect that dozens of captives will be returned to their families,” Biden told reporters in Massachusetts on Nov. 24 where he spent the Thanksgiving holiday. “In the early morning, 13 Israeli captives were released … all these have been through a terrible ordeal, and this is the beginning of a long journey of healing for them…. Today has been a product of so much hard work and weeks of personal engagement.
“From the moment Hamas captured these people, I, along with my team, have worked around the clock to secure the release we saw. I have spoken repeatedly with the Emir of Qatar, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to help secure this deal, and I want to thank all three leaders for their personal partnership to get this done.
