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Officials from the Israeli government and Hamas indicate that hopes for a much-needed cease-fire agreement in Gaza could be slipping away. For the sake of the innocent people caught in the carnage, that must not happen. Leaders must choose peace for their people.
Keith and Aviva Siegel were taken hostage by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Aviva was released last November during a temporary cease-fire, but Keith has been held captive for over 300 days. Aviva, together with Keith’s brother, Lee Siegel, spoke with ABC News earlier this week about the imperative for a deal that can bring about peace and bring the remaining hostages home.
“The open issues can be resolved. That’s the bottom line,” Lee Siegel told ABC News on Aug. 19. “The two sides need to come together and agree to that, and that basically means the Prime Minister of Israel [Benjamin Netanyahu], and [Yahya] Sinwar of Hamas, who is also military and also political. The two of them need to take a breath, do what’s right for their citizens, and seal the deal.”
We continue to hope, perhaps against the prevailing odds, that Israeli and Palestinian leaders alike will listen to the powerful, straightforward calls for peace like this one. We hope they will stop letting domestic politics and organizational ambitions stand in the way of an end to the bloodshed.
We hope that the families of the more than 100 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas will finally be reunited with their loved ones after nearly a year of agony. We hope that the Palestinian civilians, who have suffered unimaginable losses during the Israeli bombardment with tens of thousands of people killed and nearly 2 million displaced, will finally get a respite from the destruction and devastation.
No more Israeli hostages should be found dead, like the remains of six hostages recovered this week. And no more Palestinian schools should be bombed, no more children should die horrific deaths due to the failures of previous generations — both Palestinians and Israelis — to choose peace over prolonged conflict.
Leaders on both sides of this conflict have accused the other of not truly wanting a peaceful resolution, and of backtracking from the previously agreed-upon cease-fire framework that has yet to be implemented. Rather than questioning the commitment of those across the bargaining table from them, they must demonstrate their own resolve to actually help the people they claim to represent. Innocent civilians on both sides of this conflict want and deserve an end to the violence.
The temporary cease-fire last November brought more hostages home than bombs have, and did more to facilitate humanitarian aid. In his remarks to ABC News, Lee Siegel noted how it felt “like a miracle” when his sister-in-law Aviva came home from captivity last November as part of that temporary cease-fire.
“That shouldn’t be a miracle. It’s something that countries and diplomacy can solve,” Lee Siegel said. “Hostages do not return home when guns are shooting. Cease-fire agreement, hostages start returning, as Aviva said, quiet in Gaza, quiet in our region.”
Everyone deserves that peaceful quiet. Their leaders need to deliver it — for Israelis, for Palestinians, and for the entire world.
