For a year now, freeing hostages held by Hamas has been one of Israel's main goals, but 101 still remain missing. Waiting for a deal to deliver them home The near future is rapidly declining.
Of the 240 hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, 117 were released in a temporary ceasefire or rescued during an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mission. Dozens of the 101 who were not freed are believed to be dead.
Four Americans – Keith Siegel, 65, Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, Omer Neutra, 22, and Idan Alexander, 21 – are among them.
Many hostage families have lost faith in the US and Israeli governments. We don't trust Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu. Getting the hostages back home is the priority,” Keith Siegel's niece, Hannah Siegel, told CNN on Monday.
“The ability to negotiate with (Hamas leader Yaya) Sinwar trying to get the hostages out alive is highly unlikely,” said Mark Schwartz, a retired Army general and former U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
“There is no strategic advantage for Hamas. Hostages are useful human shields and getting a few hundred Palestinians out of prison is a big deal,” he said, referring to a possible prisoner exchange. “This will not prolong the life of the Hamas leadership living inside Gaza.”
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American hostages still in Gaza, from left to right: Sagui Dekel-Chen, Idan Alexander, Omer Neutra and Keith Siegel. (via Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu Getty Images/Missing Families and Hostage Forum)
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been urging Netanyahu for months to agree to a ceasefire agreement that would see the hostages return home.
However, as the war spreads from Gaza to Lebanon to Tel Aviv – and given Israel's aggressive response to Iran's recent missile attacks – the United States is increasingly calling for a ceasefire around an empty echo chamber.
“The mood is bad right now,” said Michael Makovsky, president of the American Jewish Institute for National Security.
“What is Sinwar’s interest in making a deal? Hamas' military capabilities are practically destroyed. I don't think he thinks he'll ever make it out alive. I don’t think he wants to leave Gaza anyway.”
Sinwar, the shadowy Hamas leader and architect of the October 7 attacks, is believed to be alive and still bent on the destruction of Israel.
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On the eve of the anniversary of the attack, Netanyahu held his first meeting in a month on the hostage situation. According to The Times of Israel, his officials warned him that information about the hostages was quickly running out. They told him they believed half the hostages were alive and in increasingly precarious conditions. They also warned that Hamas militants were under orders to execute them if they thought the IDF was approaching their positions.
Hamas killed six hostages in a tunnel in the city of Rafah in August as the IDF approached.
Israelis gathered on September 5 to demand that their government agree to a hostage deal (Amir Abed Rabbo/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“You want to hope that someone will be rescued, but for a hostage deal that doesn’t look good,” Makowski said.
“I think Netanyahu should have shown more sympathy for the hostages from the beginning, and then it became so ingrained that half of Israeli voters didn't like him, so he didn't care.
“To be fair to him, he was the prime minister who negotiated an Israeli hostage deal in Gaza – which turned out to be a terrible deal – in which they released more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.” “One of these prisoners was Sinwar.”
In 2011, Israel agreed to an exchange in which it released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners – including Sinwar – for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Sinwar served 22 years of a life sentence in Israel in 1989 for killing two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians believed to be his accomplices.
Gershon Baskin, who led negotiations on that deal, said he believes Hamas is ready to reach a deal — and it's not one that U.S. officials have been working on for months.
Relatives of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and their supporters protest near the hotel where Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is staying during a visit to Tel Aviv, Monday, August 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwiegenberg)
“The war will end in three weeks with the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. They will release and return all hostages, military, civilian, living and dead, and agree to the release of Palestinian prisoners. they rule Gaza. The system would be handed over to a civilian, technocratic and professional government, of which they would not be part.”
Critics of such ideas say they have failed to eliminate Hamas, which could reconstitute itself and threaten Israel again.
Baskin does not perform any official role for Israel or Hamas, but said U.S. officials are aware of the proposal and will pressure Netanyahu and Hamas to reach an agreement between themselves.
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In May, Biden unveiled a three-phase deal that would allow Hamas to return 18 to 32 hostages in exchange for 800 Palestinian prisoners and a six-week pause in fighting.
“It’s a bad deal, and I know that the American leadership – (CIA Director Bill) Barnes and (White House Middle East Coordinator Brett) McGurk and others – have invested deeply in this negotiation, but they simply have to admit which is not going to happen. Anyone in place,” Baskin said. “It’s a dead deal and they need to get another deal that can actually work.”
Efforts to reach the White House and the Israeli government for comment on this story have been unsuccessful so far.
