Hostage’s brother tells US lawmakers Netanyahu blind to urgency of reaching deal
GOP chair of House Foreign Affairs Committee says he’ll raise issue with premier after relatives of captives testify, urging members to pressure Netanyahu for agreement
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not demonstrate that he understands the urgency of the plight of the hostages during his meeting with a group of their families in Washington, one of the relatives who was present told the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
Nine American-Israeli hostage family members, including one former captive, testified before an open session of the House panel, pleading with US lawmakers to use their influence to pressure the Israeli prime minister to agree to a deal.
“I have to say that the urgency of the matter did not seem to resonate with him,” said Daniel Neutra, whose brother Omer is one of the 120 hostages being held in Gaza and one of the eight with American citizenship.
Neutra was one of nearly two dozen hostage families who met with Netanyahu on Monday evening shortly after the premier arrived in Washington. Relatives, some of whom flew to the US alongside Netanyahu, are hoping to use the occasion of the premier’s speech to Congress Wednesday and high level meetings this week to ramp up pressure for a deal after nearly 300 days.
Neutra told the panel that Netanyahu was mum when asked why he was waiting until later in the week to dispatch negotiators to resume talks on freeing the hostages instead of sending them immediately.
Netanyahu’s office announced shortly before he left for the US on Sunday that he had directed Israel’s hostage negotiating team to depart on Thursday for another round of talks, indicating that there will not be a deal by the time the prime minister addresses Congress on Wednesday.
Netanyahu has moved to have the Israeli negotiation team formally submit new demands, arguing that Hamas is beginning to buckle under military pressure and that it can be squeezed into agreeing to more concessions.
The strategy has devastated many of the hostage families who traveled to Washington for Netanyahu’s Wednesday address for a joint session of Congress, among them 12 relatives of American citizens held hostages in Gaza. They have demanded that the premier’s speech include a declaration that he has agreed to the hostage deal currently on the table.
“We must continue putting pressure on all parties involved, including Hamas, to accept this deal now before more people die in captivity,” Neutra told the Congressional panel.
Committee chair Rep. Michael McCaul responded that he’s meeting with the prime minister on Wednesday and will raise the issue with him — a rare moment in which a Republican lawmaker appeared prepared to challenge Netanyahu.
American-Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen’s father Jonathan told the House panel that “any true friend of Israel today must pressure our prime minister to finish the deal now.”
Dekel-Chen noted that Israel’s own security establishment has encouraged the government to accept the deal on the table, explaining that it has completed the military goals that it set out for itself.
Testimony of sexual assault
The most emotional part of the meeting was the testimony of former hostage Aviva Siegel who recalled having seen young women she was held with after they were “touched” by their Hamas captors.
“I saw the girls coming back after they were touched. I saw the girls coming back after they were forced to take a shower with the door open, when it was the first time that anybody saw their body,” Siegel said, adding that she and those she was held with had been beaten and tortured.
Siegel — whose husband, Keith Siegel, is still being held in Gaza — said she and other hostages weren’t allowed to sit or stand and that their “only human right” while in captivity was deciding whether to lie on their backs or on their sides.
“I was starved while they ate in front of me,” she said, adding that she was constantly thirsty because the hostages were given little water.
There was little oxygen and it was difficult to breathe, she said, highlighting the plight of those who have been in captivity underground for a period eight months longer than her. Siegel was released as part of the last hostage deal between Israel and Hamas in late November.
She recalled looking at her husband as they lay together in an underground tunnel, struggling to breathe, and praying to herself that she would die first to avoid having to see him dead.
They hadn’t been allowed to hug each other or cry. “Now, I’m here, thinking about Keith and the girls, and it’s too much for me to handle because I know where they are and who they’re with,” she said.
She called on Netanyahu to accept the hostage deal on the table. It’s possible to end the war today, but if the sides wait, the conflict could spiral out of control, and it might then no longer be possible to save the hostages, Siegel warned.
Turning to the US lawmakers, Siegel said: “I’m asking you all, please help us. I’m begging. We need them back as soon as possible. I do not want Keith dead.”
‘Off’ comments by pair of US lawmakers to hostage families
Most of the lawmakers expressed support for reaching a deal to release the hostages. Democratic Rep. Bill Keating said Israel had accomplished all it could on the battlefield, saying Netanyahu should accept this “hard-earned agreement.”
However, the relatives of some of the American hostages hit back at one Democratic lawmaker who suggested that Israel should not release terrorists in exchange for the hostages, and at a GOP politician who suggested the US prioritize pressuring Iran.
Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman recalled the deal Netanyahu approved in 2011 to release over 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners, including current Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, in exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
It’s “critical that we’re not planting the seeds for another October 7,” he said.
Responding to the Democratic lawmaker, hostage Omer Neutra’s father Ronen pointed to the assurances that the Israeli security establishment has provided to the political leadership that it will be able to deal with the consequences of any terrorist released.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s father Jon noted that one of Israel’s chief rabbis had issued a religious ruling determining that saving a life is important enough to potentially risk the lives of other people in the future.
Republican Rep. Joe Wilson largely avoided talking about the plight of the hostages or the deal currently on the table and instead focused on Iran, claiming that he’d like to cooperate with the hostages’ families to put pressure on Tehran, given that people in the Islamic Republic chant “Death to America and Death to Israel.”
Some of the hostage representatives appeared somewhat surprised by Wilson’s remarks.
Neutra responded by agreeing that Iran is indeed a threat that should be dealt with, but explained that freeing the hostages is the more immediate issue that must be prioritized. Once they are released, Israel can turn its focus to other threats.
Polin likened the current situation to hospital triage, saying no good doctor would focus on dealing with patients in a cancer ward upstairs while there are patients bleeding out on the floor in front of them.
He urged lawmakers to steer the premier toward addressing the more pressing issue, which is the hostages.
American-Israeli hostage Itay Chen’s father Ruby acknowledged later to The Times of Israel that Sherman and Wilson’s comments had been “a little off.” However, he stressed that both the committee’s Republican chairman McCaul and Democratic ranking member Rep. Gregory Meeks spoke very passionately in support of the hostages.
“I think the timing of this meeting was highly efficient and hopefully meaningful to them,” Chen added.
Chen told The Times of Israel that many of the families left the Monday meeting with Netanyahu with an overall feeling of disappointment.
“The expectation was that it would be a working session with Q&A, but it ended up being just an overview from the prime minister who did not respond directly to the questions of the families,” he said.
Chen panned Netanyahu for reportedly saying the hostages are suffering, but not dying — comments the premier hasn’t denied — and said Monday’s announcement by the IDF that two more hostages have been killed in captivity proves that the premier is wrong.
It is believed that 116 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 44 confirmed dead by the IDF.
“The hostages do not have time, and the fact that the prime minister took a week off, so to speak, of this topic is unacceptable,” Chen added.
Chen noted that the American hostages’ families meeting Monday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was much more informative. The top Biden aid is also emotionally invested in their cause, he said.
