Families of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday renewed their calls for the government to quickly reach a deal with the Palestinian terror group for the captives to be released.

Among those who spoke out was the family of Yoram Metzger, one of three elderly Israeli hostages seen in a propaganda video that Hamas released the night before. Metzger, 80, along with Chaim Peri, 79, and Amiram Cooper, 84, were among the approximately 240 people abducted by Hamas and other terror groups on October 7 when Hamas led a devastating attack that killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas and release the hostages.

Metzger’s son Guy, speaking to the Ynet outlet, urged the government to “make the right decisions.”

“If the government doesn’t want to bring back bags full of bodies, then they [the hostages] must be released as soon as possible,” he said.

There has been a whirlwind of media reports that Israel is in talks through mediators to reach another deal similar to one agreed on last month that saw over 100 hostages set free during a weeklong truce. Metzger’s wife Tami was released on November 28 as part of that temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and the United States.

Yoram Metzger’s granddaughter Omer, who survived the Hamas attack in the community of Kibbutz Nir Oz when her grandparents were abducted, said that the clip further underlined “what we have been crying out already for two months — the government needs to initiate a deal to return them [the hostages] home now.”

Omer had posted to Facebook the day before Hamas released the video clip that her grandmother upon her release had described “the violence she suffered and the appalling conditions that they were kept in, and her friends from the kibbutz, who are getting weaker, and expiring each day that passes in captivity.”

Noting her grandfather’s age and his need for diabetes medication, she added that “like him there are many others, some of them elderly, some of them injured, who cannot remain in captivity.”

“Every day is a gamble, every day can be the last,” she wrote. “We have an obligation to bring them back now, and not just now but yesterday and two months ago. This duty is forever tied to our trust in the country.”

Jimmy Miller, a cousin of Shiri Bibas, told Ynet that the family is still holding out hope that Bibas and her two young children are alive. Hamas said last month that the three, who were last seen in a terrorist video as they were being dragged into captivity, are dead.

“We hope there will be a deal and very much hope that they will be included in the deal one way or another,” Miller said.

Shay and Niva Wenkert also spoke to Ynet about their son Omer, who is a hostage.

“I think Israel needs to do everything it can to get everyone out — all of them; all of them need to be out,” Niva said. “Israel needs to pay the price for the terrible disaster that happened to us on October 7. It can’t be that that we paid such a high price and today the hostages are abandoned there.”

She noted that recently, the only hostages who have come out of Gaza have been dead.

“Hostages are going into Gaza alive and coming out to us in coffins,” she said. “A deal needs to happen today and Israel needs to be ready to pay the price because otherwise we won’t be able to recover. I don’t mean us as a family, I mean us as a country, a society, a nation. We won’t recover if they don’t come home.”

Mossad chief David Barnea met with CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Warsaw on Monday to discuss efforts to reach a new hostage deal, according to multiple reports in the Hebrew press. A US official also confirmed the meeting to the Associated Press.

Barnea was previously widely reported to have met with Al Thani in Norway on Friday night.

Washington believes that Egypt and Qatar can pressure Hamas into a deal similar to the previous agreement but Cairo sees that as unlikely to work this time, the source said.

An Egyptian source told the Arabic-language outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Egyptian and Qatari officials have informed their US counterparts that reaching a prisoner deal will be difficult as Hamas is insisting that it will not negotiate under fire.

Qatar was a key mediator in the first hostage deal, which saw 105 civilians released from Hamas captivity in Gaza over seven days in late November — 81 Israelis, 23 Thai nationals, and one Filipino.

In return, Israel released 240 Palestinian women and teenage male security prisoners.

It is believed that 129 hostages remain in Gaza — not all of them alive. Four hostages were released before the first truce, and one was rescued by troops.

The bodies of eight hostages have also been recovered and the bodies of three hostages who were mistakenly killed by the military on Friday have been returned to Israel. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 21 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

Following the deaths of the three hostages at the hands of IDF troops in Gaza last week, several reports on Saturday night indicated that Israel was looking to boost efforts to reach a new hostage deal with Hamas. The deaths also fueled calls in Israel for the government to reach a deal and hundreds rallied in Tel Aviv demanding negotiation of an agreement to release all the remaining hostages.