WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden met with the families of American hostages in Gaza for roughly two hours at the White House on Wednesday, one of the individuals present at the meeting told The Times of Israel.
“We knew this going in, but we got further affirmation that the Biden administration — the president, the secretary of state — are completely committed to gaining the release of all the hostages, including the Americans among them,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui is among the 135 people still held by Hamas.
“They’re doing absolutely everything they can, through every channel and with every tool that they have to accomplish that,” Dekel-Chen said.
Biden welcomed the hostages’ relatives and made some opening remarks before the group proceeded to have a conversation about various subjects related to their loved ones held in Gaza, Dekel-Chen said, declining to elaborate on the specific contents of the private conversation. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also attended the gathering, the White House said.
Liz Hirsh Naftali, the great aunt of four-year-old US-Israeli Avigail Idan, who was released during a truce last month, said Biden had been “bringing out the light in this dark time” through his efforts to get more hostages freed.
“We’d love a Christmas miracle,” she said. “We would love all of our loved ones to come back and be with us for Christmas.”
“We know that they are working 24 hours a day, and they are going to work through the holidays and they are going to do everything they can to make sure that all of our loved ones — real people — come home to us and to the families across the world and Israel,” Naftali said.
While Dekel-Chen and Naftali expressed hope, the family members in a statement also voiced concern about the mental and physical pain the hostages are enduring.
“Every day, we worry that they are dying a little bit more. We implore our government, the Israeli government, and governments around the world to find a way to bring them home before it is too late,” the families said.
The White House later said Biden was “grateful” to the families for “the time that they afforded him.”
“He was moved by their stories, by the love they feel, by the hope they still harbor and he harbors that hope too, and he… is acting on that,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters following the meeting, while wearing a dog tag necklace reading “Bring them home now.”
Kirby reiterated that Hamas still holds young women hostage “in violation of the deal it negotiated in Doha,” adding: “We know what they have proven capable of doing to young women,” referring to the mounting evidence of sexual violence by Hamas terrorists on October 7.
He again insisted that a unilateral ceasefire with Hamas “is not the answer,” but that Hamas could end the war if it released the hostages, surrendered those responsible for the October 7 attacks and threw down their weapons. “If they really cared about the Palestinian people the way they claimed to, they would do this. That they haven’t done it speaks volumes,” Kirby said.
The group of 13 Israelis who met with Biden at the White House also have other meetings planned for Wednesday on Capitol Hill to continue raising awareness regarding the plight of the hostages.
US officials say an estimated eight US hostages are still being held since Hamas’s murderous October 7 attack on Israel, and four others have been released so far. Israeli officials say about 135 hostages remain in Gaza, including around 20 bodies.
During the weeklong truce that began last month, 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity in Gaza: 81 Israelis, 23 Thai nationals and one Filipino. Earlier, four hostages were released and one was rescued by the IDF, and so far, five bodies have been recovered from Gaza by the military.
The vast majority of the remaining hostages are Israeli, and around 15 are believed to be women; 11 are foreign nationals, including eight from Thailand.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.