Attempts to push Hamas to a short and limited hostage exchange by striking in Gaza is a Band-Aid rather than a true solution that will bring the hostages home, Ronen Neutra, father of slain hostage Omer Neutra, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
“For over a year and a half now, we have been told that Hamas will be defeated. But Hamas hasn’t been defeated, and there is no agreed-on plan for what is going to happen after Hamas,” he said.
There is a feeling that the Israeli government is dragging its feet, he added, saying that it seems they are “trying to earn another day and another day.”
In a horrible way, this somewhat aligns with Hamas’s own goal of survival, Neutra added.
Ronen and his wife, Orna, have been fighting for 18 months to bring their son home. He was a lone soldier and tank commander who was killed on October 7. Hamas has been holding his body ever since.
Neutra’s parents spoke to the Post about their fears in light of Israel’s return to attacking in Gaza earlier this month, expanding on statements they made at the annual symposium of the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies at the University of Haifa – where they stressed that more military pressure puts the hostages at risk.
“We know of 41 hostages who were killed in captivity, either from fire by our troops or by Hamas murdering them because the IDF was approaching,” Orna said at the symposium organized by the philanthropy, which advocates for Israel-US relations, among other causes.
“The concerns of the hostage families are clear. The Israeli government has had 15 months of war to bring [the hostages] back in different ways, and in fact, only the current deal has brought them back,” she added.
“The biggest concern for us is that he will not be found and that we will never get closure,” Orna told the Post, adding that they felt “exhausted, desperate, and angry.”
Families fear hostages' return
Ronen echoed this fear, saying that it is shared by other families of captives. Families fear that their loved ones may never come back if “Israel will not agree to what was agreed on – to move to the second stage in the negotiation, stop the war, and get a full exchange of all the hostages.”
Orna added that “there are no words to express this – but the families are anxious every time there is talk about a small deal.”
She said that talk of deals leaves the families wondering if living or dead hostages are set to be released, and the families do not know “who comes first.”
“They all need to come out,” Orna stressed.
“There doesn’t seem to be a plan for that, and one would think that after such an extended amount of time with two administrations in the US and here, they would have some kind of plan for all of them.”
Not seeing such a plan and watching how things seem to be progressing is discouraging, she added.Ronen added that the pressure Israel was currently putting on Gaza and Hamas was not the pressure of a “full war,” saying that this was allowing Hamas to lay low and pass the time while the hostages were tortured and maybe dying.
“This is unacceptable,” he said, adding that they “are calling on the Israeli government to make a bold decision and move on with the larger deal – bringing all 59 [hostages] out in return for stopping the war and bringing the IDF back.”
“There will be plenty of opportunities in the future to deal with Hamas,” he added, saying that “this is not the highest priority right now.”
ASKED IF they felt that US Jewish organizations have prioritized the hostages, Orna and Ronen said that on a personal and community level, they have received a great deal of support and felt that fighting for the hostages was the consensus.
When it comes to the organizational level, however, they see a “lack of clarity on the priorities.”
“We fully understand that the Jewish organizations in the US need to and should support the Israeli government,” Ronen said.
“But when there is an event like we are experiencing here, where there is a certain holocaust happening while the Israeli government is in charge, there should also be room for criticism,” he said.
“This is a huge humanitarian issue that creates a huge bleeding wound in Israeli society and within the Jewish people abroad,” Ronen added, saying that they were not seeing “moral clarity” on this from US Jewish organizations.
“If you ask the people of Israel what they feel, 70% feel that [the hostages are] the top priority. Whether the government is doing whatever it needs to do to resolve it or not is a political issue. But as Jewish organizations that are supposed to set the priorities for the Jewish people worldwide, we’re not hearing that moral clarity strongly enough,” Orna said.
“People will wake up one day and ask: ‘Where were we?’”
Ronen said that the relatives of the hostages and the hostages themselves were currently facing an impossible situation.
He said he felt as though their ability to mourn, to process their loss, was being held hostage.
“We can’t even mourn properly; we can’t even start to understand our loss. And like us, all the families are stuck,” Neutra explained.
This is true even for those families the remains of whose loved ones have been brought back because the hostage situation unites everyone, he said.
“Just like how retuning hostages are speaking up and saying they cannot continue with their lives until they get their brothers and sisters back, families of deceased hostages who got their loved one back and, so to speak, got their closure, have not. This is a big issue for all the families and the circles around them.”
“Hundreds of family members and thousands of family members around them still have their lives stolen, on hold, held hostage,” he said. “Just like us – for a year-and-a-half, this is what we do... Every day, all day. It has to stop; it has to come to an end somehow and soon.”
“Our son moved to Israel and volunteered in defense of the country because of his deep sense of solidarity and commitment to the Jewish people,” Orna said.
“Now it is time for the Jewish people to step up – to step up for their brothers and, unfortunately, the three deceased women still held in captivity.”