President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that three more hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, bringing the total number of living hostages down to 21.

“They said only 24 are living and I now correct, I say 21 because as of today it’s 21,” Trump said to reporters at the White House. “Three have died. So this is a terrible situation.”

Fifty-nine hostages, both living and deceased, remain in Gaza, according to official numbers.

“We’re trying to get the hostages out, we’ve gotten a lot of them out. As the expression goes, there are 21 plus a lot of dead bodies,” the president added.

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Trump did not clarify which hostages died, or if 21-year-old American citizen Edan Alexander is among them.

NEW: Trump says that three more hostages held by terrorists in Gaza have died, bringing the total of living hostages down to 21 out of 59. pic.twitter.com/cy13oI73dt

— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) May 6, 2025

“These are young people, and young people don’t die,” Trump added. “Old people die, but young people don’t die under these conditions.”

The Israeli government has not yet confirmed Trump’s claim, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara told reporters the number was less than 24, the Times of Israel reported.

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Trump made the comment during the official swearing-in of Steve Witkoff as U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff has been tasked with negotiating a ceasefire and hostage deal between Hamas and Israel.

On Sunday, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a plan to invade and occupy the Gaza Strip in an expanded ground operation.

The plan, named “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” will go into effect if Hamas fails to reach an agreement with Israel by the end of President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East next week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said military action would be intensified during the operation which he believes will help rescue the hostages.

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“We decided on intensified action in Gaza,” Netanyahu said. “That was the IDF chief of staff’s recommendation — to move, as he said, toward the defeat of Hamas. He believes this will also help us rescue the hostages. I agree with him.”

Tens of thousands of IDF reservists are expected to be called up to help with the operation, which is reportedly one of the largest since the war began in October 2023.

Daily Wire investigative reporter Spencer Lindquist took home a 2025 Media Research Center Bulldog Award for excellence in conservative media.

The Media Research Center (MRC) presents the Bulldog Awards to conservative journalists, columnists, and podcast hosts each year as an alternative to the left-leaning Pulitzer Prize. Lindquist received the MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Blogger for his reporting on Colony Ridge, a housing development in Texas that advertises to illegal immigrants and has become a hotbed of illegal alien crime.

Lindquist has “documented rising crime in the greater Colony Ridge area, including a child abduction, drug overdoses, drug trafficking, drunk driving, murders, and hideouts for criminal illegal immigrants,” the MRC announced this week.

“Despite that, Lindquist reported that developers view mass immigration as a business opportunity, including the systematic targeting of illegal immigrants by allowing them to purchase land without a Social Security number.”

The MRC further notes that “thanks to Lindquist’s reporting, Colony Ridge has been put squarely in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, including immigration operations that have nabbed over 100 illegal aliens and MS-13 gang members.”

Other Bulldog Award recipients this year include the economist Thomas Sowell, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award; Elon Musk, who was named Outstanding Social Media Personality; the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel, Outstanding Columnist; and CNN contributor Scott Jennings, who was honored for Outstanding Achievement Behind Enemy Lines.

Beyond Colony Ridge, Lindquist has reported on judicial efforts to stymie the Trump administration’s immigration policies and cataloged instances of illegal immigrant crime. Just this week, he broke the news that the Trump administration was deputizing local law enforcement agencies to carry out certain ICE duties, including deportations.

Outside of immigration, Lindquist has also reported extensively on the transgender lobby and left-wing environmental policies, among other issues.

“As trust in left-wing media continues to collapse, independent news sources featuring fearless truth-tellers are on the rise,” MRC Vice President for Research and Publications Brent Baker said. “This year’s MRC Bulldog winners are replacing discredited leftists who claim to report the news, yet failed the American people when it came to stories like the Russiagate scandal and Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.”

Lindquist joins a number of his Daily Wire colleagues in the ranks of MRC Bulldog Award winners. Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro and host Matt Walsh have each received the Outstanding Podcast Award. Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan and video journalist Kassy Akiva have previously been named Outstanding Blogger. And Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak was the first-ever recipient of the MRC’s Bulldog Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalist.