Diplomatic talks to secure the release of the roughly 100 Israeli hostages whom Hamas continues to hold against their will for a whole year have stalled in recent weeks, and there are few signs a deal could come together in the near future.

Hamas kidnapped about 250 people from southern Israel and brought them back to Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. For the hostages who were not released during a weeklong ceasefire last November, they marked the one-year anniversary of their abduction on Monday — as did their relatives, whose worlds were turned upside down.

‘Excruciating for all of us’: Families of hostages wait

Many have been held underground with little food and water by the terrorist group that slaughtered approximately 1,200 others in the attack. Hamas has not permitted the Red Cross to visit the hostages.

“So the one-year mark for us, it’s really, it’s just another day, another day of a living hell for my son, who’s also a husband and a father and a friend, an uncle and all of that,” Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son is one of the remaining hostages, told the Washington Examiner. “We mark events. We’ve marked birthdays, certainly since Oct. 7, for the kids and the grandkids, but beyond that, there’s really no particular significance. And suspect that normal time, you know, that normal people would experience, will only restart for us when Sagui and the rest of the hostages come home.”

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Dekel-Chen’s son, Sagui, 36, who is an American-Israeli citizen, is one of a handful of Americans who are held by Hamas and is believed to be alive. Sagui saved his wife and two children on the morning of Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists stormed his community. He is one of 29 members of his community, known as a kibbutz, who are being held against their will.

Sagui’s wife, Avital, was seven months pregnant when the attack happened, and she has since delivered their third daughter, who is now about 10 months old and has never met her father.

“It’s excruciating for all of us, but for me, I get up every morning and try to figure out what I can do to bring the day closer that he meets his youngest, who’s now 10 months old, and reunites with his two little girls and with his wife,” the elder Dekel-Chen said. “It’s a horrible reality.”

Keith Siegel, 65, Edan Alexander, 20, and Omer Neutra, 22, are three Americans who are believed to be alive, while Itay Chen, 19, Judith Weinstein, 70, and her husband Gadi Haggai are Americans believed to have been killed by Hamas, who continue to hold their bodies. Of the roughly 100 hostages who continue to be held, 33 of them are believed to have been killed already, according to the IDF.

Dozens of Americans were killed and others were taken hostage during the Oct. 7 attack. The Department of Justice charged multiple senior Hamas leaders with the killing of more than 40 Americans in the terrorist attack.

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Hostage return talks have stalled since September

The Biden administration, along with the Qatari and Egyptian governments, has continuously sought to broker a ceasefire deal to secure the release of the hostages for several months — effectively since the weeklong ceasefire in November fell apart. U.S. officials have repeatedly shared updates of progress and urged both sides to make the concessions needed to get a deal done, but those talks have stalled.

In early September, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “nearly 90%” of the Gaza ceasefire deal is agreed” upon, and yet nothing has materialized. He also stated that Hamas “is not in a position to repeat the horrific attacks of Oct. 7th,” which was a reference to the Israeli government’s vow to ensure Hamas could not conduct a repeat attack.

Israel’s government has refused to agree to the terms of Hamas’s demands to secure the release of the hostages, choosing to prioritize its military objectives over getting the hostages home (to the dismay of the families and many Israelis in general) despite the assessment, as Blinken referenced, that Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out a repeat attack.

Sinwar the ‘obstacle’ to any breakthrough

At the same time, Hamas has shown little interest in agreeing to a deal to give up the hostages, even though that means the continuation of a war that has pulverized the strip, led to the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians, and created the concerns of widespread famine and disease.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in late September that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be hiding in tunnels underneath Gaza, is the obstacle to a deal.

“[Sinwar] is the obstacle, no questions about it,” he explained, adding that “it’s tough to get him to say yes to things that he’s already said he wants. It’s very, very difficult. But as the president said the other day, everything is unrealistic until all of a sudden it’s not anymore.”

Jonathan Dekel-Chen praised the Biden administration’s efforts to get the hostages home but blamed both Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not having agreed to a deal yet.

“They are seeking new points of leverage,” Jonathan Dekel-Chen said of the Biden administration. “They are seeking new solutions for this negotiated process. But their commitment has been total. The problem is that there have been two immovable objects in getting to an agreement. One is Hamas, and one is the Israeli government.”

Biden, for his part, said in a statement on Monday morning acknowledging the anniversary: “Today and every day, I think of the hostages and their families. I have met the families of the hostages and grieved with them. They have been through hell. My Administration has negotiated for the safe release of more than 100 hostages, including Americans. We will never give up until we bring all of the remaining hostages home safely.”  

The hostage families have long accused Netanyahu and his far-right coalition of continuing the war, and now of opening up a more aggressive conflict in the north against Hezbollah, instead of making a deal.

“The [Israeli] government doesn’t seem to have any real interest in getting the hostages home, or it’s an extremely low priority for them, versus other things they want to accomplish. As far as the country is concerned, the country has spoken. There have been millions of people in the aggregate every week going into the streets to protest,” Jonathan added. “If they do not act immediately to cut hostages home, they will be remembered in history as the worst leaders in Israeli, if not Jewish, history.”

Daniel Neutra, whose brother Omer is among the American hostages, told U.S. lawmakers in late July that when they met with Netanyahu, “the urgency of the matter did not seem to resonate with him.” He also added, “We must continue to put pressure on all parties involved, including Hamas, to accept this deal now before more people die in captivity.”

Time running out as more bodies are recovered

With the U.S. election about a month away, Jonathan Dekel-Chen does not believe the next administration will actually play a part in securing their release because “whatever administration comes in, be a Democratic or Republican in mid-January, all the hostages will be dead by that time.”

One of the recent tragedies in the plight of the hostages was the Israeli military’s discovery of six bodies in a tunnel underneath the city of Rafah. They recovered the bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, Master Sgt. Ori Danino, and Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

Hamas threatened, in the aftermath of the recovery, to kill the hostages if they believed Israeli forces were preparing to attempt (or were in the middle of) a rescue mission. Prior to that, Israeli forces had successfully rescued a handful of hostages, though they also accidentally killed three hostages whom they believed were terrorists last December.

Hamas has kidnapped Israelis in the past, though usually soldiers, and it has sought to use them as bargaining chips to extract concessions from Israel. In 2011, Israel and Hamas agreed to a deal in which Hamas released IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held by them since 2006, in exchange for the release of 1,027 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

One of the Palestinians who was freed in that exchange was Sinwar, who is widely considered to be the mastermind behind last year’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack.