US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Tuesday with the families of US-Israeli hostages held by Gaza-ruling terror group Hamas while visiting Israel, with Israeli television reporting he conveyed some optimism for a possible release deal.
Blinken urged the families to keep appearing in media, speaking to officials and holding events to raise awareness about the plight of the hostages, telling them these activities help, according to the Channel 12 news report.
Quoting relatives of hostages who took part in the meeting, the network said Blinken stressed the US was working hard to reach a deal and told them “at the moment there’s a route that may lead to results.”
He also reportedly updated them about his recent meetings in Qatar, which played a key role in brokering the release of 105 civilians by Hamas during a weeklong truce in November, and said Israel has shown greater flexibility in the negotiations, without elaborating.
The report also said Blinken met with Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet security service, after sitting down with the families.
At a press conference later Tuesday in Tel Aviv, Blinken spoke of the families for whom every minute that they have been separated from their loved ones since the Hamas-led onslaught three months ago “is an eternity.”
“We continue to stand with Israel to ensure that October 7 can never happen again,” he stressed, and highlighted the imperatives of bringing the remaining hostages home, “addressing the humanitarian crisis,” “strengthening of protections for civilians in Gaza,” and “preventing the conflict from spreading.”
During the October 7 attack that sparked the ongoing war, some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing over 240 hostages — mostly civilians — of all ages under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities.
Also Tuesday, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, marked the first birthday in Hamas captivity of Kfir Bibas — who is the youngest hostage held by the terror group — pulling out a cake for the child in a speech at United Nations headquarters in New York.
Bibas was almost 10 months old when he was taken with his four-year-old brother, Ariel, and their mother Shiri Bibas, 32, from their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 during Hamas’s murderous onslaught in southern Israel.
Shiri’s husband and the father of the two boys, Yarden Bibas, 34, was also taken hostage.
“If you ignore the suffering of our children, the suffering of baby Kfir, I will stand here today and mark Kfir’s first birthday. I will remind you of your moral obligation to fight for Kfir and his right to celebrate his birthday,” Erdan said at the podium, uncovering a cake.
“This cake is for you, you are the reason Israel is fighting day and night,” he said.
It is believed that 132 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during the November pause in fighting. Four hostages were released prior to that, and one was rescued by troops. The bodies of eight hostages have also been recovered and three hostages were mistakenly killed by the military.
The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 25 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.