Hostage families pen letter to Trump asking for help, say Israeli government has abandoned them

Looking to ramp up the pressure on all parties working to negotiate a deal between Israel and Hamas, several families of hostages sent a letter to US President Donald Trump asking for his help, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

Lishi Miran Lavi, wife of hostage Omri Miran; Liran Berman, the older brother of twin hostages Gali and Ziv Berman; Dalia Kushner, sister-in-law of hostage Eitan Horn and released hostage Iair Horn; Yotam Cohen, brother of captive soldier Nimrod Cohen, and Einav Zangauker penned the missive, the report says.

“For more than a year and a half, the Israeli government has been playing with the lives of our loved ones,” they wrote. “Assurances were given and violated. Hopes were given and trampled on. While the prime minister and his government members evade, hide, and bide their time, our hostages are being severely tortured, and we saw the results of the terrible abuse when they returned to us in coffins or emaciated and tortured.”

Trump, who last week met with a group of freed hostages in the Oval Office, has reportedly been moved by the condition of some hostages who returned after months of being starved and abused by their captors.

Families of some hostages, as well as some of those who have been released, have increasingly extolled Trump as their hope and savior while accusing the government of being ineffective and bogged down in a coalition quagmire.

“When there is no one left to rely on, we turn to you, President Donald Trump,” they implored. You are the only person who can now get involved and bring an end to this nightmare.”

The families accused the government of “abandoning the lives of our sons and daughters out of stubborn insistence on positions that have no relation to a security threat” and of saying one thing to them behind closed doors and “telling a completely different story to the public.”

“If it doesn’t act immediately to return all the living hostages — we will reveal to the people everything that they said to us. All the broken promises.”