JNS
House Speaker Mike Johnson met on Capitol Hill with relatives of captives held in Gaza.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson met on Wednesday with families of Israeli and American hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza since their kidnapping on Oct. 7, 2023.
The meeting with the Louisiana Republican took place at his office in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Johnson expressed solidarity with the families and reaffirmed the current Biden and incoming Trump administration's commitment to securing their loved ones' release, stressing that we must "take the hostages out from Hamas's tunnels of death as quickly as possible," according to a press release from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters.
Aviva Siegel, wife of American hostage Keith Siegel, shared details of her 51 days in captivity and concerns for the remaining captives.
"We cannot allow human beings to endure what I experienced—the most horrific ordeal imaginable," she said.
"The hostages live in constant terror, uncertain if they will survive, fearing torture, abuse or starvation. They wait endlessly to be saved, dreading who might be next to die. I cannot bear to think of the girls I left behind, exposed to sexual violence, fearing every day that they might be touched, violated and harassed. I was released through a negotiated deal and could have easily died. If we abandon them, we condemn them to potential death each day. Now is the moment to seal the deal and secure their freedom," Siegel said.
Participating in the meeting were the families of American hostages Keith Siegel, Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel Chen, Itay Chen, Judi Weinstein Haggai and Gad Haggai, and of their fellow hostages Karina Ariev, Romi Gonen and Naama Levy.
On Monday, former hostage Judith Raanan met with President-elect Donald Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla. She was the first female hostage to be released by Hamas in the Gaza Strip after being kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz in the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Raanan, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen based in the Chicago area, gave Trump a drawing she had made and described the trauma of her captivity. She expressed her trust in the incoming president and urged him to work towards a deal to free the remaining 96 hostages who have been held captive for the past 14 months.
“Please do everything possible to bring the 100 hostages home,” she told Trump.
Adam Boehler, Donald Trump’s special envoy for hostage affairs, previously said, “I have a strong conviction that we will bring everyone home—both those alive and those who are not. The president’s insistence on achieving this before his inauguration has already catalyzed significant progress in negotiations.”
On Tuesday, families of American hostages held by Hamas in Gaza met with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to discuss the efforts by the Biden administration to secure the release of the 100 captives still in custody, including seven Americans.
Sullivan is visiting Israel, Egypt and Qatar this week to discuss efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza that would see the hostages freed.
According to Israeli estimates, there are 100 hostages in Gaza, including 96 abducted during the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 251 people were taken. One-hundred-fifty-five hostages have been rescued or returned and Hamas is believed to be holding 36 bodies—those of Israeli soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul kidnapped in 2014, and 34 taken on Oct. 7, 2023.
