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Fact-checking Donald Trump’s speech in Israel on same day as hostage, prisoner releases
President Donald Trump speaks in Israel on October 13, 2025, on the day Hamas released all living Israeli hostages and Israel released Palestinian prisoners and detainees. He called this agreement brokered by him "the historic dawn of a new Middle East".
“This is not only the end of a war, it is also the end of an era of terror and death, it is also the beginning of a era of faith, hope and God.”
Trump's speech focused on his administration's efforts to broker an agreement between Israel and Hamas that included a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of 20 Israeli hostages, 250 Palestinian prisoners and approximately 1700 Palestinian detainees without charge.
The subsequent stages of this "Twenty-Point Plan" that may achieve lasting peace are complex and full of variables. After the speech, Trump flew to Egypt to sign an agreement with world leaders, and the summit launched the first phase of implementation of the agreement.
According to the plan, Arab countries and international partners will form stability-keeping forces to station in Gaza, and the daily governance power will be transferred from Hamas to the Palestinian Council. The committee will be composed of Palestinians and international experts, and will be supervised by the "Peace Committee" chaired by Trump and composed of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other members.
Trump is the fourth U.S. president to address the Knesset, in which he praised his handpicked negotiators Steve Witkov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio while slamming Democratic predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He also called on Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced charges in corruption cases for years.
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XBelow is a fact-check by the Pointer Institute on some of Trump’s statements:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with U.S. President Donald Trump after addressing the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem on October 13, 2025. | AP Photo
1. Trump claimed that he "solved eight wars in eight months".
The agreement signed on that day is widely regarded as a landmark moment in this decades-long conflict, in which Trump played a key role. However, his repeated emphasis on "solving eight wars" is exaggerated.
Trump facilitated recent ceasefire agreements to ease conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. But most of these agreements are incremental, and some leaders disagree with the extent of Trump's role.
The United States has participated in a temporary peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, but violence in the region continues, with hundreds of civilians killed since the June agreement was signed.
Egypt’s long-standing confrontation with Ethiopia around an Ethiopian dam on the Nile remains unresolved, but is closer to diplomatic disputes than military conflicts.
Trump has made significant progress in brokering a ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, but the agreement involves multiple stages, so it will take time to test whether peace can last.
Two, "So we dropped 14 bombs on key Iranian nuclear facilities and completely destroyed them, as I initially said. That has been confirmed."
It is not yet confirmed whether Operation Midnight Hammer had successfully destroyed the nuclear facilities — in which the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities in June to weaken its nuclear weapons capabilities — because U.S. and allied intelligence would not necessarily be effectively disclosed to the public.
The U.S. has been attacking Iran’s major underground nuclear facility in Foldor for more than three months, and the extent of the damage caused by the U.S. bomb is not yet clear.
The New York Times’ analysis on August 20 pointed out that follow-up assessments found the likelihood of the attack causing significant damage was rising, but the paper concluded that “it may be difficult to truly determine because of too many variables and unknown factors.”
“The outcome of the Iran nuclear deal was a disaster.”
Trump did not mention the fact that Iran has largely complied with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Under the agreement, Iran agreed not to seek nuclear weapons and to allow continuous monitoring of its compliance in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. The agreement was originally scheduled to expire in 10 to 25 years.
Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and failed to negotiate the deal as he promised.
Many experts praised the agreement for successfully preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran did not find any breach of the agreement except for minor violations that had been resolved.
After the US withdrew from the agreement, economic sanctions were imposed on Iran on the basis of its nuclear program, and Iran subsequently reduced the level of compliance with the agreement.
During the Obama and Biden administration, “they had hatred of Israel, which is total hatred.”
The two Democratic presidents have a somewhat tense relationship with Netanyahu, who often curry favor with U.S. Republican leaders, but the United States continued to support Israel's foreign policy and military power during their tenure.
Osama Haley, a professor of history at the University of Chicago and a modern Middle East expert, said the allegations that Obama or Biden “has personal hostility toward Israel, especially Biden,” are not true.
"In fact, both governments have pushed for the expansion of U.S. military aid and cooperation with Israel," Haley said. "In 2016, Obama signed the largest military aid deal in U.S. history."
In 2016, the United States and Israel signed a 10-year memorandum of understanding totaling US$38 billion. The document lists multiple priorities, including updating the Israeli Air Force fleet and maintaining the country's missile defense system.
Military funding to Israel continued during Biden’s tenure, and over the two years since October 7, 2023, the U.S. government has provided $217 billion in military aid to Israel.
Biden has ordered U.S. troops to be deployed around Israel and the Gaza Strip, and to seek asylum in the United Nations by blocking a number of ceasefire resolutions, Khalil said.
Five, Obama and Biden “do nothing about this stunning document, the Abrahamic Agreement.”
It was only years after the end of President Obama’s term that the Abrahamic Agreement was officially signed.
The 2020 agreement, reached during Trump’s first term, brought together leaders from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. These countries agreed to peace and cooperation with Israel, set up mutual embassies, prevent hostilities and promote tourism and trade exchanges.
The Biden administration had attempted to get Saudi Arabia to join the agreement, but the effort stalled after Hamas launched an attack on October 7, 2023.
“The idea of a formal relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia is becoming much more difficult,” said Jeremy Presman, a professor of political science at the University of Connecticut and an Israeli conflict expert, after the Hamas attacks in 2023.
"You go from Iran to Qatar and you can get there in a second.You 'bump' the ground and you get to Qatar." (as he told reporters on Air Force One on October 12)
Qatar faces Iran in the Persian Gulf and is more than 100 miles away from the waters.
According to Google Maps, it takes at least 24 hours to drive from Qatar to Iran, crossing Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.
7. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi "likes me so much that he didn't even see Hillary in 2016" Clinton. "He looked at her for about two seconds." (Trump's speech in Egypt on October 13)
In September 2016, as presidential candidates for their respective political parties, Trump and Hillary Clinton met with them during Egyptian President Sisi’s trip to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Political News Network that Sisi's talks with Clinton "dured more than an hour."Clinton's campaign team said the two sides discussed topics such as counter-terrorism, human rights, the situation in the Middle East and economic development in Egypt.
Trump also met with Sisi that night.
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Published in: Political Affairs Verification | politifact
Author: Pointe Institute
https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/oct/13/Trump-Israel-Knesset-hostages-Gaza-prisoners/
Compiled by: 24:00 Observatory