Hostage’s father: Netanyahu said after speech he wants to squeeze Hamas a little more before deal

Adi Alexander, father of hostage Edan Alexander, reflecting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mention of the hostages during his Wednesday afternoon address at the Capitol, asks, “Where’s the deal?”

“How do they cross the finish line with the deal that’s on the table?” says Alexander in a phone interview with The Times of Israel. “Where do we stand, how close are we? Three months? Three years? It took five and a half years to get Gilad Shalit out.”

Alexander and his family, who were with the other families of US hostages in the gallery of the Capitol during Netanyahu’s address, says they met with Netanyahu during a reception following the speech hosted by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

He was told by Netanyahu that the prime minister wants to squeeze Hamas a little bit more.

“The ball right now is on the Israeli side,” says Alexander, who along with the other families of American hostages, also met with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier this week. “And when we talk about Israel, we’re talking about one person, Benjamin Netanyahu. He needs to decide if it’s ‘yes’ right now, or if he wants to achieve a little bit more.”

Alexander and the other families of American hostages will meet Thursday with US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu together, presumably following Biden and Netanyahu’s one-on-one meeting.

“I’ll try to get some answers tomorrow,” says Alexander. “We need to make sure that everyone does his job. It’s an American law to get hostages out, but there’s no kind of law like that in Israel.”