There has been a major difference since US President-elect Donald Trump’s statement that “all hell will break loose” if the hostages weren’t released by the time he took office, the daughter of two hostages said.
“Since he made that statement, things have changed,” Iris Weinstein Haggai told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday.
Weinstein Haggai, daughter of Canadian Judy Weinstein Haggai and American Gadi Haggai, whose bodies were taken hostage into Gaza after being killed near their Kibbutz Nir Oz home on October 7, is slated to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday along with other family members of American hostages.
Weinstein Haggai has frequently traveled to Washington from her home in Singapore throughout the past 470 days. She was last in Washington about a month ago when the American hostage families first met with National Security Advisor-designate Mike Waltz.
Jake Sullivan, US President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, met with the American hostage families more than a dozen times after October 7 and was instrumental in keeping the families informed on the state of negotiations.
'They know who the bad guys are'
The Trump administration “won’t let terrorists get rewarded” and will do everything they can to get our loved ones out, she said of her impression from Waltz.
After meeting Waltz, she described hearing everything she wanted to hear and feeling a sense of “breathing a little bit” because Trump’s people know what they’re doing, she said.
“They know who the bad guys are,” Weinstein Haggai added, saying it seems like terrorism got rewarded, and Hamas got “so many passes.”
“It got to the point where the murder of my parents and their bodies being taken hostage was normalized; the kidnapping of my friend and her two babies was normalized,” she said. “It just makes no sense.”
The Middle East needs someone who will be feared, according to Weinstein Haggai, which is what was needed to get this deal done.
Even though Biden and Trump have each claimed responsibility for securing the deal, she praised both administrations for working together.
“Conservative, Republican, liberal, it’s not about any of those things. This is a standalone humanitarian crisis. The biggest hostage crisis in modern history,” Weinstein Haggai said. “It feels very, very good to know that these two administrations recognize it and work together.”
Hours before the first hostage release and Trump’s inauguration, Weinstein Haggai described feeling “anxious, scared, optimistic, excited, sad, and angry.”
Angry that the deal took as long as it did to come to fruition, and optimistic for the incoming administration to hold Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accountable for seeing through all three phases of the agreement, she said.
While she was happy the deal was heading in the right direction, Weinstein Haggai explained the deal was still not over as 64 hostages would be left behind during the first phase of the agreement, 29 of whom were from her kibbutz.
“We have to make sure all the phases are complete. I’m very happy we have progress, but at the same time, I can’t let my heart get too excited,” she added.
Weinstein Haggai described during the first ceasefire in November 2023 – when she hadn’t yet learned her parents had been killed on October 7 – waiting every night for Hamas to publish the list of hostages it would release the next day.
“Every night, I would get a no; my mom was not on the list,” she said. “And in the end, she never came out. Other friends of mine never came out. So, you know, we’ll see what happens.”
Weinstein Haggai said that since no one truly knows who’s alive and who’s dead, it’ll be hard realizing some people are not alive and not coming home.
Gadi and Judy’s bodies should be released if Israel and Hamas reach the third phase of the ceasefire.
“Every day is so full of anxiety and excitement and sadness and happiness,” she said, inhaling deeply. “That’s part of the reason that I’m in Washington right now to make sure it happens. I can’t let myself have confidence because I don’t want my heart to break again and again and again, even though it still will.”
Weinstein Haggai thinks Netanyahu respects Trump, who has a lot of goals he wants to complete in the Middle East, including expanding the Abraham Accords.
She doesn’t see how Israeli society will live through not all of the hostages coming home, and she thinks Trump understands how important that is for peace to happen in the Middle East.
“I truly see a civil war happening, and it breaks my heart. I love Israel, I love my people,” she said. “If we don’t bring everybody home, this will never be over, and we’ll get in another loop, in another loop, in another loop. I do believe that Trump understands it.”
Weinstein Haggai told the Post she needs the closure to start mourning her parent’s deaths; she’s resisted mourning in the hope that Gadi and Judy are not really dead and that the images she saw of their bodies were edited.
“Our breath has been choked for 470 days. My life has been on pause,” she said. “I don’t work; I don’t do anything aside from doing this, trying to bring everybody back.”