The family of Israeli-American hostage pleads with Biden and Trump to bring hostages home

Varda Ben Baruch, whose grandson Edan Alexander is held hostage in the Gaza Strip by Hamas militants, poses for a portrait at home in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

TEL AVIV, Israel — Over the past two weeks, the political landscape around the negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza have undergone a dramatic transformation.

The American elections, the firing of Israel’s popular defence minister, Qatar’s decision to suspend its mediation, and the ongoing war in Lebanon all seem to have pushed the possibility for a ceasefire in Gaza further away than it has been in more than a year of conflict.

Still, some families of the dozens of hostages who remain captive in Gaza are desperately hoping the changes will reignite momentum to bring their loved ones home — though the impact of Donald Trump returning to the White House and a hard-line new defense minister in Israel remains unknown.

“I think maybe there is new hope,” said Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, 20, a soldier kidnapped from his base on the Gaza border during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

Alexander’s parents, Adi and Yael Alexander, who live in New Jersey, met this week with Trump and President Joe Biden in Washington and pleaded with them to work together to bring all the hostages home in a single deal.

“As a grandmother, I say, cooperate — Trump wants peace in this region, Biden has always said he wants to release the hostages, so work together and do something important for the lives of human beings,” Ben Baruch said.

She said neither leader offered specific details or plans for releasing the hostages or restarting negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire.

Talks have hit a wall in recent months, largely over Hamas' demands for guarantees that a full hostage release will bring an end to Israel’s campaign in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vows to continue fighting until Hamas is crushed and unable to rearm.

“We’re not involved in politics, not American and not Israeli, the families are above politics, we just want our loved ones home,” she said. “Edan was kidnapped because he was Jewish, not because he voted for a certain party.”

More than 250 people were kidnapped and 1,200 killed when Hamas militants burst across the border and carried out a bloody attack on southern Israeli communities. Israel’s campaign of retaliation since has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and some 90 per cent of its 2.3 million people have been displaced.

As militants attacked on the morning of Oct. 7, Edan Alexander, then 19, was able to send a quick message to his mother amid the intense fighting around his base. He told her that despite having shrapnel embedded in his helmet from the explosions, he had managed to get to a protected area. After 7 a.m., his family lost contact.

Alexander was considered missing as the family desperately searched hospitals for him. After five days, friends recognized him in a video of Hamas militants capturing soldiers.

The family was happy: He was alive, Ben Baruch said. "But we didn’t understand what we were entering into, what is still happening now.”

When a week-long ceasefire last November brought the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, some of the freed hostages said they had seen Alexander in captivity. Ben Baruch said they told her Alexander kept his cool, encouraging them that everyone would be released soon.

Ben Baruch said she was disheartened when Netanyahu last week fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who she said had consistently reassured the families that the hostages were at the top of his agenda.

“I felt he was a partner,” she said. Gallant was replaced by a Netanyahu loyalist who has urged a tough line against Hamas.

A mass protest movement urging the government to reach a hostage deal has shown signs of weariness, and hostage families have struggled to keep their campaign in the headlines. A delegation of former hostages and their relatives met with the pope on Thursday and expressed hope the incoming and outgoing American administrations would bring their loved ones home.

In Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, the headquarters of the protest movement, opinions were mixed on the effect of Trump’s election on hostages.

“I don’t think this is good for Israel or the hostages, I’m really scared of him,” said David Danino, a 45-year-old hi-tech worker from Tel Aviv. He was at Hostages Square with his family, visiting from France, who wanted to pay their respects.

Danino noted that Israel had already achieved many of its war goals, including killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “They are building us a photo of what is ‘victory,’ but how is there victory without the hostages?” he asked.

Others thought Trump’s reputation might help the situation.

“When he decides to do something, he does it, without blinking, and he can create ultimatums,” said Orly Vitman, a 54-year-old former special education teacher from the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon.

She comes every few months to the square with her daughter to light candles in honor of the hostages. While she was opposed to the firing of Gallant in the middle of the war, she was heartened by Trump’s election.

“We will have the legitimacy and ability to use the full force of what we know how to do,” she said.

Ben Baruch, a philanthropist and accomplished artist whose modernist sculptures dot the Tel Aviv home where she has lived for 52 years, said she has pushed everything aside in her life to focus on the struggle to bring her grandson home. Her days are filled with meetings, interviews, rallies, protests and communal prayer sessions uniting different groups of Israelis from across the religious spectrum.

“It’s like people’s lives went back to their routine, but ours did not,” she said. “There’s nothing left to say. All the words have been said. We have heard everything. We have met with everyone. But they are still there.”