Fact check: What was the role of the US in securing the release of hostages from Gaza in 2024?

Executive Summary: The United States played a central, sustained diplomatic role in efforts that led to the release of hostages from Gaza between late 2023 and 2025, with the Biden administration taking primary credit for brokering a multi-phased ceasefire and hostage-exchange framework while later administrations and envoys built on those foundations to complete releases; competing claims crediting former President Trump for a final breakthrough reflect political framing rather than a clean shift in control of negotiations. American diplomacy combined direct negotiation, coordination with regional mediators (notably Qatar and Egypt), and public and private pressure on Israeli and Palestinian actors to craft bridging proposals and pauses in fighting that enabled captive transfers, and contemporaneous statements from U.S. officials and mediators describe the Biden team’s “dogged and painstaking” work and continued U.S. engagement afterward ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

1. How Washington’s “deal-making” was described and counted: a diplomatic ledger that favors Biden’s team The Biden administration is described in multiple accounts as the architect of the ceasefire-plus-hostage framework that enabled phased releases, with administration officials publicly crediting months of diplomacy for landing an agreement that produced substantial numbers of freed captives, including a set of releases in November 2023 and later transfers in early 2025; reporting notes the Biden plan presented in May provided the blueprint for a multiphased pause to allow exchanges and humanitarian relief ^{[4] [2] [5]}. U.S. statements framed the achievement as the result of sustained negotiation involving shuttle diplomacy and coordination with Qatar and Egypt, and the administration emphasized the novelty of a multiphase approach designed to scale up releases and prisoner swaps over time, a point reflected in contemporaneous mediator statements that the bridging proposal built on Biden’s plan ^{[2] [5]}.

2. Who else was at the table—and why regional partners mattered Doha and Cairo repeatedly appear in contemporaneous descriptions as co-brokers and guarantors, with joint U.S.-Qatar-Egypt statements laying out bridging proposals intended to be implemented swiftly to pause fighting and permit exchanges; those partners provided access channels to Hamas and leverage inside Gaza that the United States lacked on its own, and mediators credited that trilateral cooperation with enabling the procedural steps for captives to move ^{[2] [5]}. U.S. diplomacy was therefore not unilateral: it leveraged regional intermediaries with operational ties to Hamas to transform an American policy framework into actionable steps on the ground, while also sustaining pressure on Israel to accept pauses and on Hamas to release hostages, a dynamic repeatedly described by officials and press reporting ^{[2] [5]}.

3. The evolving American cast: envoys, messaging and political claims Washington used specialized envoys and high-level diplomacy to sustain momentum; U.S. hostage envoy Adam Boehler engaged in direct talks and publicly signalled confidence that deals could be reached within weeks, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly connected battlefield developments—such as the killing of key Hamas leaders—to negotiation openings for freeing captives ^{[6] [7]}. At the same time, later public narratives credited by some to former President Trump emphasize his relationships and a 20-point plan, signaling a political contest over who gets credit—reports note that Trump’s rhetoric and outreach were presented as contributing to a final breakthrough even as the Biden-era framework remained the basis for concrete implementation, reflecting overlapping timelines and partisan framing of diplomatic achievements ^{[8] [3]}.

4. Numbers, timing and contested tallies: what was actually released and when Reporting and mediators list discrete release events: large groups of hostages were freed under deals tied to pauses in fighting, with widely cited tallies indicating 105 freed in November 2023 under an initial phase and an additional tranche of 33 released in January 2025, leading to a total of roughly 138 captives tied to the negotiated frameworks credited to U.S.-led diplomacy ^[4]. Counting who “secured” those releases depends on whether credit is assigned to the administration that originated the framework, to regional intermediaries who operationalized transfers, or to subsequent negotiators who closed remaining gaps—contemporary accounts therefore show overlapping claims rather than mutually exclusive success stories, a nuance visible in both mediator statements and political narratives ^{[4] [5]}.

5. What remains contested and why it matters for policy and accountability The debate over attribution—whether Biden’s diplomacy “did it” or later actors deserve primary credit—matters for public accountability and future leverage in conflict mediation; sources show the Biden administration’s plan supplied the operational framework and months of negotiation, while later actors and political rivals highlighted their own interventions and messaging to claim credit for final outcomes ^{[1] [8]}. Readers should note the dual realities: the tangible mechanics of hostage releases relied on multilateral mediation and procedural bridging proposals, while public claims about who “secured” the hostages followed partisan incentives and strategic communications, underscoring that diplomatic success is both a technical achievement and a political narrative ^{[1] [8]}.