{"id":190081,"date":"2025-10-04T20:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T20:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/190081\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T20:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T20:15:08","slug":"hope-and-fear-for-hostage-families-after-hamas-response-to-gaza-peace-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/190081\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope and fear for hostage families after Hamas response to Gaza peace plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza have told the BBC they are hopeful that US President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the war will bring their loved ones home.<\/p>\n

Vicky Cohen, whose son Nimrod is among 20 hostages held in Gaza who are still believed to be alive, said she had woken on Saturday with a sense of “hope and expectation”, but also “fear that something will go wrong”.<\/p>\n

“It is a fragile situation and we don’t want to be disappointed again. And yet I feel hope that soon I will see Nimrod and I can hug [him] again.”<\/p>\n

Nimrod, now aged 21, was a 19-year-old soldier when he was kidnapped by Hamas near the Gaza border in the 7 October 2023 attacks. In total, 251 people were taken hostage that day, and some 1,200 others were killed.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Hamas agreed to release all the remaining Israeli hostages<\/a> – living and dead – but said it wanted further negotiations on a number of key points outlined in the US peace plan.<\/p>\n

After Hamas submitted its response, Trump posted on Truth Social “I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE”, as he called on Israel to “immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!”<\/p>\n

In a response overnight, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “preparing to immediately implement the first phase of Trump’s plan for the immediate release of all hostages”.<\/p>\n

Negotiations between Israel and Hamas are now expected to resume in Egypt in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Udi Goren, whose cousin Tal Haimi was killed in the 7 October attacks and his body taken to Gaza where it remains, said he was optimistic that a deal would be reached.<\/p>\n

“We’re seeing President Trump putting his foot down and getting everybody behind him, including the Arab countries and the Israeli prime minister,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We need to make sure that there’s a better future for Israelis and Palestinians. Now is the time for action, not for words.”<\/p>\n

His views were echoed by other hostage families on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the family of hostage Eitan Horn said that for “the first time in so many long and painful months, our hearts dare to believe that the release of Eitan – and of all 47 hostages [living and dead] – may finally be near. That soon, they will come home”.<\/p>\n

But, they added: “Our hope is tempered by great fear.”<\/p>\n

“Until they return, they remain starved, tortured and in constant danger of death.”<\/p>\n

Gil Dickman told the BBC he knew too well what it meant to miss a chance for a ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n

His cousin Carmel Gat was taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri and her body recovered from a tunnel in Gaza almost a year later. The Israeli military said she and five other hostages had been killed shortly before its troops reached them.<\/p>\n

“What we saw yesterday is that Hamas gave an answer – they had some agreements with Trump’s plan and some disagreements, but the main thing for me is that they’re willing to go through with this,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had so many other chances before that were missed” but this is a “very, very important stage in the process\u2026 and maybe gets us close to getting this war over with”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza have told the BBC they are hopeful that US President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-190081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}