![\"Protesters,](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/09\/02\/multimedia\/02american-hostages-01-khjm\/02american-hostages-01-khjm-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
The families of several American hostages criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday as not moving urgently enough to secure a hostage release deal, after six hostages were found dead in southern Gaza over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIt has to happen right now,\u201d said Adi Alexander, whose 20-year-old son Edan has been held captive for nearly 11 months. \u201cFull stop. Period. Cease-fire and execution of the deal. More military pressure brings more dead hostages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seven Americans, including Edan Alexander, remain held in Gaza by Hamas. Among them, the Israeli military believes, three<\/a> were<\/a>slain<\/a> on Oct. 7, but their bodies have not been returned. One dual Israeli-American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin<\/a>, was among the hostages whose bodies were recovered on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli health ministry said on Sunday that the six slain hostages had been recently shot at close range, according to a forensic examination. The Israeli military blamed Hamas for the killings. Hamas denied responsibility, without providing evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adi Alexander and his wife, Yael, of Tenafly, N.J., said in a phone interview that the killings of Mr. Goldberg-Polin<\/a> and the other five hostages were \u201cunnecessary deaths\u201d and could have been prevented. The two commended the White House for being \u201cvery dedicated and very focused from the get-go\u201d in the efforts to reach a truce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, Mr. Alexander added, \u201cI wish I could see the same dedication from the Israeli government.\u201d He said that he wanted \u201cto call on President Biden to tell Benjamin Netanyahu: Just stop the B.S. Don\u2019t delay the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Edan Alexander, an American member of the Israel Defense Forces, was raised in New Jersey and a star on his high school swim team. He arrived at a small military outpost near Gaza last September and was stationed there on the morning<\/a> of the October attacks with Omer Neutra, 22, another American who was later taken hostage. Mr. Neutra grew up on Long Island and was captain of his school\u2019s volleyball and basketball teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Neutra\u2019s parents had bonded with the family of Mr. Goldberg-Polin in recent months, in part because their sons were close in age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were holding on to a vision that they\u2019re possibly together in captivity, that we\u2019d see them come home,\u201d said Mr. Neutra\u2019s mother, Orna. \u201cThis is heartbreaking. And it shouldn\u2019t have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Neutra and her husband, Ronen, of Plainview, N.Y., said their anger reached in many directions. To the \u201cmonsters\u201d in Hamas who brutally executed<\/a> hostages. To those who do not seem outraged that their son and more than 100 other captives still remain in Gaza. And to the Israeli government, which is facing an outpouring of demonstrations<\/a> on the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities over the lack of a hostage release deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe public in Israel has shown that they have lost their patience,\u201d Mr. Neutra said, adding that he hoped Mr. Netanyahu was \u201cgetting the message that the majority of Israelis are fed up with this war, fed up with excuses. They want the hostages back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other families called on the Biden administration to immediately secure the release of the American hostages in Gaza, who also include Keith Siegel<\/a> and Sagui Dekel-Chen<\/a>. The Israeli military believes that several of the captives were killed during the Hamas-led attacks in October, including Judih Weinstein Haggai<\/a> and her husband, Gadi Haggai<\/a>, as well as Itay Chen, who would now be 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But his father, Ruby Chen, is still longing for good news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUntil somebody shows me something physical, we are still having some hope that some miracle happened,\u201d Mr. Chen said in a phone interview from Israel. \u201cThere\u2019s no physical evidence on his whereabouts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Itay Chen was born in Israel, but loved to visit relatives in New York City and on Long Island, riding the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island and eating hot dogs at Nathan\u2019s, Mr. Chen said. He noted that many of the American captives shared a connection to the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlmost half are New Yorkers,\u201d he said, \u201cand these New Yorkers need to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other parents of hostages are also outspoken in their criticism of the efforts to bring hostages home<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son, Sagui, remains captive in Gaza, last received an update about him in November, when around 100 women and child hostages were released by Hamas as part of a temporary truce. Some of them had seen his son, wounded but alive. In the months Sagui Dekel-Chen has been in captivity, his third daughter was born and his 36th birthday passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe marked it as best we could,\u201d said the elder Mr. Dekel-Chen, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His son grew up \u201can archetypal kibbutz kid,\u201d learning to fix agricultural equipment by his father\u2019s side in the machine shop, Mr. Dekel-Chen said. When he was in fourth grade, the family moved to Boston, where he learned to play baseball. He was so talented that he made Israel\u2019s junior national team when he moved back as a teenager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the younger Mr. Dekel-Chen never stopped tinkering. Working on weekends near the old shop on the kibbutz, he took old buses and gave them productive second lives, as homes or as mobile grocery stores visiting food deserts in the region. Recently, he had agreed to turn four old airport buses into technology classrooms for a nonprofit that provides education to children in poorer and more isolated communities around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sagui Dekel-Chen was working on the buses on the morning of Oct. 7, having mostly finished refitting two of them, his father said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ephrat Livni\u00a0contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Troy Closson<\/a>\u00a0is a Times education reporter focusing on K-12 schools.\u00a0More about Troy Closson<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Campbell Robertson<\/a>\u00a0reports on Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, for The Times.\u00a0More about Campbell Robertson<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jay Root<\/a>\u00a0is an investigative reporter based in Albany, N.Y., covering the people and events influencing \u2014 and influenced by \u2014 state and local government.\u00a0More about Jay Root<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seven Americans remain held in Gaza by Hamas. An eighth American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was among the hostages whose bodies were recovered on Saturday. By\u00a0Troy Closson, Campbell Robertson\u00a0and\u00a0Jay Root, Sept. 2, 2024 The families of several American hostages criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday as not moving urgently enough to secure a hostage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15636,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15635\/revisions\/15636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}