The family of an Israeli-American hostage is asking Biden and Trump to return the hostages home

TEL AVIV, November 16: The political landscape surrounding the Gaza ceasefire talks has changed dramatically over the past two weeks.

The US election, the firing of Israel’s popular defense minister, Qatar’s decision to suspend its mediation and the ongoing war in Lebanon appear to have pushed the possibility of a cease-fire in Gaza further back than it has been in the past year. conflict

Still, some families of the dozens of hostages who remain captive in Gaza are desperate for the changes to renew momentum to bring their loved ones home — despite the impact of Donald Trump’s return to the White House and a hardline new defense minister in Israel. remains unknown.

“I think there may be new hope,” said Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, 20, a soldier abducted from his base on the Gaza border in an October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.

Alexander’s parents, Adi and Yael Alexander, who live in New Jersey, met with Trump and President Joe Biden in Washington this week and pleaded with them to work together to bring all the hostages home in one deal.

“As a grandmother, I say work together — Trump wants peace in this region, Biden has always said he wants to free the hostages, so work together and do something important for people’s lives,” Ben Baruch said.

She said neither leader had provided specific details or plans for the release of the hostages or the resumption of ceasefire talks in Gaza.

Talks have hit a wall in recent months, largely over Hamas’ demands for guarantees that the full release of the hostages would end Israel’s Gaza campaign, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to keep fighting until Hamas is defeated and can rearm.

“We are not involved in politics, neither American nor Israeli, families are above politics, we just want our loved ones to be at home,” she said. “Edan was kidnapped because he was Jewish, not because he voted for a certain party.”

More than 250 people were kidnapped and 1,200 killed when Hamas militants stormed across the border and launched a bloody attack on southern Israeli communities. Israel’s campaign of retaliation since then has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced about 90 percent of the 2.3 million people.

When the militants attacked on the morning of October 7, Edan Oleksandr, then 19, was able to send a quick message to his mother amid intense fighting around his base. He told her that despite having shrapnel from the explosions in his helmet, he had managed to get into the guarded area. After seven o’clock in the morning, communication with his family was interrupted.

Oleksandr was considered missing as his family desperately searched for him in hospitals. Five days later, his friends recognized him on a video of Hamas militants capturing soldiers.

The family was happy: he was alive, said Ben Baruch. “But we didn’t understand what we were getting into that was still happening now.”

When a week-long ceasefire last November led to the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, some of the freed hostages said they saw Alexander in captivity. Ben Baruch said they told her that Alexander kept his cool, encouraging them that they would all be released soon.

Ben Baruch said she was disappointed when Netanyahu last week fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who she said had repeatedly assured the families that the hostage issue was high on his agenda.

“I felt like he was a partner,” she said. Galant was replaced by a Netanyahu supporter who called for a hard line against Hamas.

The mass protest movement calling on the government to strike a deal on the hostages is showing signs of fatigue, and the families of the hostages are struggling to keep their campaign in the headlines. A delegation of former hostages and their relatives met with the Pope on Thursday and expressed hope that the new and outgoing US administration would bring their loved ones home.

In Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, the headquarters of the protest movement, opinions were mixed about the impact of Trump’s election on the hostages.

“I don’t think it’s good for Israel or the hostages, I’m really afraid of him,” said David Danino, a 45-year-old high-tech worker from Tel Aviv. He was at Hostage Square with his family, who had come from France to pay their respects.

Danino noted that Israel has already achieved many of its military objectives, including killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “They give us a picture of what victory is,” but how is victory without hostages? he asked.

Others believed that Trump’s reputation could help the situation.

“When he decides to do something, he does it without blinking, and he can issue ultimatums,” said Orly Whitman, a 54-year-old former special education teacher from Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv.

Once every few months, she comes to the square with her daughter to light candles in honor of the hostages. Although she opposed Gallant’s firing in the midst of the war, she was encouraged by Trump’s election.

“We will have the legitimacy and the ability to use the full power of what we know how to do,” she said.

Ben Baruch, a philanthropist and accomplished artist whose modernist sculptures dot the Tel Aviv home she has lived in for 52 years, said she put everything in her life aside to focus on fighting to bring her grandson home. Her days are filled with meetings, interviews, rallies, protests and joint prayer sessions that bring together different groups of Israelis from across the religious spectrum.

“It’s like people’s lives are back to their routine and ours is not,” she said. “There is nothing to say. All the words have been said. We’ve heard it all. We met everyone. But they’re still there.” (AP)