Hostage families strive for Trump meeting amid fear of captives' winter survival in Gaza

With now less than two months until Trump takes office, the families' efforts to secure meetings with Trump or members of his incoming administration have been unsuccessful. 

By HANNAH SARISOHN NOVEMBER 24, 2024 00:00 Updated: NOVEMBER 24, 2024 00:01

US President-elect Donald Trump attends the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, US, November 14, 2024. (photo credit: REUTERS/CARLOS BARRIA/FILE PHOTO)

The families of American hostages held in Gaza say they cannot wait until President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January before meeting with him and members of his cabinet to secure the release of the 101 remaining captives, including six Americans.

During a meeting at the White House almost two weeks ago, President Joe Biden encouraged the hostages’ families to meet with the incoming administration.

Biden, who met with Trump at the White House for the first time for more than two hours just prior to his meeting with the hostage families, briefed Trump personally on the hostage situation.

With now less than two months until Trump takes office, the families’ efforts to secure meetings with him or members of his incoming administration have been unsuccessful.

Former hostage Sapir Cohen meets with President-elect Donald Trump. (credit: Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

Fears of hostage survival

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of Israeli-American hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, said the general belief across Israel is that the hostages who might still be alive will not last the winter.

“So if we wait for President Trump to take office, there will be no living hostages to get home, and it’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to recover bodies of those who have been murdered under the rubble of Gaza,” he said.

“Therefore, we are doing everything that we can to implore both the Biden and the Trump administrations to do everything they must in unison, preferably so that it’s most effective to get a deal done and to get hostages home and a ceasefire in place before Trump takes office.”

Dekel-Chen is staying in the US for the next several weeks to impress upon both the outgoing and incoming administrations “the absolute urgency of now.”

“Because otherwise, they will all come home in coffins if we can even recover the bodies by mid-winter,” he said.

Both Dekel-Chen and Ruby Chen, father of Itay Chen, whose body remains in Gaza, referenced former president Ronald Reagan and how Iran released American hostages moments after Reagan’s inauguration.

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Trump can have his “Reagan moment” and have a similar outcome of getting the hostages out on his first day in office, according to Chen.

He is hopeful that will happen, because he thinks the most leverage Trump will have on securing the hostages’ release will be at the beginning of his administration.

“And if it doesn’t happen, it might get pushed back to some later time,” he said.

Chen, who has never met or spoken with Trump, thinks the former president got the message when Biden suggested that he meet with the American families.

“Now it’s up to him what he wants to do with it,” he said.

Yael and Adi Alexander, parents of 20-year-old Edan Alexander from Tenafly, New Jersey, were invited to spend the first anniversary of October 7 with then-candidate Trump, who paid a visit to the Ohel.

The Alexanders spent 15 minutes in a private meeting with Trump that day, telling the former president about their son and the circumstances the American hostage families were facing.

It’s the only meeting the Alexanders have had with Trump, and they’re actively seeking to schedule another.

They’re vigorously trying to get a meeting with anyone from the transition team who will be assigned to their case once in office, whether it’s Secretary of State appointee Sen. Marco Rubio, or incoming National Security Advisor Rep. Mike Waltz.

Adi described all of Trump’s cabinet picks as a “clear fit to the position they will be holding.”

The only choice the Alexanders are questioning is Trump’s selection of Steve Witkoff as his Middle East special envoy.

Brett McGurk, who currently holds that position in the Biden administration and has bounced back and forth from Washington to the Middle East, has become a fixture of the Alexanders’ lives over the past year.

“The businessman from Florida – we don’t know exactly who he is,” Adi said of Witkoff. “And we will try to meet him as well.”

A meeting with Rubio scheduled for last week fell through after the senator was stuck on Capitol Hill with votes, Adi explained.

The Alexanders also aren’t sure who exactly from the incoming administration will be assigned to their case.

Trump’s people are trying to figure that out themselves, Adi said.

Up until now, hostage negotiations have been led by CIA Director Bill Burns and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Adi assumes the CIA will stay in the picture but isn’t sure what role Waltz will play in the negotiations when he takes over Sullivan’s office.

Sullivan has held meetings over Zoom with the American hostage families nearly twice a month since October 7 and has met with them in person at the White House 14 times.

Adi expects at least one more in-person meeting with him before the end of the Biden administration, though nothing has been scheduled yet.

“We’ve built in emotional connection, where there’s emotional equity invested in these people,” Chen said of Sullivan and Burns. “And I think we are eager to build that same type of emotional equity with the new administration.”

The Alexanders have been unsuccessful thus far in connecting with Waltz to set up a meeting.

Chen explained how, overall, it’s been more difficult to get a hold of Trump’s cabinet nominees who are not coming from Congress.

“The new people that have come to the administration, that do not have staff – it’s more difficult to get a hold of them,” Chen said. “We’re not on the radar yet of something that they need to deal with immediately.”

The families have built connections with people in the Republican Party who are trying to be helpful, Chen said, but the general response is there needs to be some patience because the cabinet picks are just setting up shop.

Scheduling a meeting with Trump himself is proving to be even more difficult.

“We don’t have a clear picture of how to approach [Trump], and actually what will be his approach,” Adi said.

He pointed out how, while campaigning, Trump never offered a clear plan for how he would secure the release of the hostages.

“We heard numerous times during the two debates when he was asked about the hostage issue, the only answer he provided was, ‘with me, it would never have happened,’” Adi said. “He never answered.”

Adi did praise Roger Castens, who served as Trump’s first special envoy for hostage affairs, and expressed hope for the next person to fill that role.

“Our only message is to Trump: make good on your promises,” he said, referencing an early August post from the then-candidate on his social media network Truth Social about needing to get the hostages home.

“Let’s all continue to keep the American hostages held in Gaza in our thoughts. They must be brought home!” Trump wrote in the post, listing the names of hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Omer Neutra, Keith Siegel, Edan Alexander, and Sagui Dekel-Chen, who were all believed to be alive at the time.

Trump did not mention Itay Chen or other deceased American hostages.

“That [post] was on his network, okay?” Adi explained. “So just make good on your promises and work for the release.”

Spokespeople for Trump’s transition team did not respond to The Jerusalem Post’s multiple requests for information about scheduling meetings with the hostage families.