US President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday that of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza, only 21 are believed to be alive. This was immediately challenged by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which reminded Trump that, currently, records show that 24 of the 59 hostages are alive, with 35 known to be deceased.
The forum added that if this statement and previous ones made by the Israeli government indicate that the hostage families have not been updated about the status of their loved ones, it is a serious failure on the government’s part.
“Once again, we demand that the Israeli government share with us immediately if there is new information that has been withheld from us,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said following the comment by the US president.
The hostage families have sat beside Trump since his post-inauguration celebration. They have been in continuous contact, especially the US citizens among them, with the US government since October 7, 2023. If this was not a slip of the tongue, it reveals a true betrayal of the hostage families, either by the Israeli or the US government.
Given recent events, public opinion is leaning toward blaming the former.
At an event meant to introduce the prime minister and his wife to this year’s Independence Day torchbearers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned the 24 living hostages, to which his wife, Sara, responded in a whisper, “fewer.”
This sparked outrage all over Israel and the Jewish world. It was not only a suggestion that hostage families have not been informed about their own husbands, wives, or children being dead, effectively taking away any hope of their return to their lives, but it was whispered, adding a feel of brutality to the comment.
“What did you mean by ‘fewer’? Do you know something we don’t?” the forum asked following the comment, which was shared in press groups by the Prime Minister’s Office and later removed. They also accused Sara of creating “indescribable horror” for the hostage families, “who are already in a state of torturous uncertainty.”
Einav Zangauker, mother of Matan Zangauker who is one of the hostages assumed to be alive and still held hostage, wrote in an X/Twitter post, “If the prime minister’s wife has new information about hostages who were killed, I demand from her to know whether my Matan is still alive or if he was murdered in captivity because your husband refuses to end the war.”
Sources in the PMO later told Israeli media that the number 24 is, in fact, accurate, but the concern remained prevalent, the biggest being that Sara may have been exposed to confidential information and made the little comment as a response.
However, multiple media sources, including the left-wing Haaretz and the right-wing Channel 14, have reported the number 21 in the past, with the three not being dead but rather in uncertain conditions.
Why, then, if that is the case, has Israeli media been informed while the hostage families have not? Despite denial from the PMO, all hints are pointing to the families being left out of the loop.
This is not okay.
It is not okay for the families of the hostages to learn possible updates about the fate of their loved ones from an offhand comment by a foreign leader or a whispered remark by the prime minister’s wife. It is not okay for the number of living hostages to become a political guessing game or for grieving parents to be forced to piece together the truth from headlines and social media.
There must be transparency, immediately and without conditions. If the Israeli government possesses new intelligence, it is morally and strategically obligated to share it with the families, not just with foreign officials, not just with selected journalists, and certainly not just with spouses behind the scenes.
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who has become a key player in international negotiations and serves as a trusted confidant of the prime minister, has refused to speak to the media for months. That silence is no longer acceptable. The Israeli public deserves answers, as do the families of the hostages.
Dermer cannot operate in darkness while the people he serves are left in it.
This is not just a matter of policy; it is a matter of human dignity.
The Israeli government must decide what it values more: control over information or the trust of its citizens. Because right now, it cannot have both.