A relative of an Israeli hostage with US citizenship being held in Gaza told NBC News that “Israeli security has shown Americans who have traveled to Israel and met with Israel’s security forces that they know where many of the hostages are but that the captives are constantly being moved.”

“Every day they are there, we also know that they could die of starvation, illness, injury or murder,” the relative said.

According to the report, the Biden administration assumes that five hostages with US citizenship are still alive. However, since it has more precise intelligence on the locations and conditions of some hostages than others, it cannot be sure that the assumption is true.

Hamas is also assumed to be holding the bodies of several more Americans who were killed on October 7th or shortly afterward.

During ceasefire talks, Hamas could not confirm that it could locate 40 living hostages who are women, children, elderly or ill – a horrifying fact that held up negotiations.

Aviva Siegel, who spent 51 days as a hostage in Gaza and whose husband Keith, of North Carolina, is still in captivity, said that her ordeal was a terrifying nightmare.

“For 186 days I was there,” she told NBC last week. “I was treated like I’m nothing. I didn’t have any human rights. We weren’t allowed to talk. We weren’t allowed to even stand.”

“They used to starve us and eat in front of us. They used to drink water, and we begged them for water. They used to sometimes bring us just a little bit of water and say that’s the water until tomorrow at 5 o’clock. So we used to have one sip every couple of hours, each of us.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)