Hostage families call for Israel, Hamas to ink deal: ‘This might be the last chance to save lives’

Families of hostages held by the Hamas terror group call for all parties to immediately accept a proposal detailed by US President Joe Biden to end the nearly 8-month-long war and bring their relatives home.

“We want to see people coming back from Gaza alive and soon,” Gili Roman tells The Associated Press. His sister, Yarden Roman-Gat, was taken hostage and freed during a weeklong ceasefire in November, but Yarden’s sister-in-law, Carmel, is still being held.

“This might be the last chance to save lives. Therefore, the current state must be changed and we expect all to adhere to Biden’s call for accepting the deal on the table, immediately. There is no other way towards a better situation for all. Our leadership must not disappoint us. But mostly, all eyes should be on Hamas,” he says.

Many hostage families blame the government’s lack of will to secure a deal for the deaths of many of the hostages in captivity.

“We know that the government of Israel has done an awful lot to delay reaching a deal and that has cost the lives of many people who survived in captivity for weeks and weeks and months and months. Our hearts are broken by the amount of people we will receive that are no longer alive,” Sharone Lifshitz tells AP. Her mother Yocheved was released by Hamas in October, and her father Oded is still in captivity.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.