A view of a banner depicting Keith Siegel, right, who is a dual US citizen seized during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and taken hostage into Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, is seen with other images of hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
The mother of Keith Siegel, an American-Israeli who has been held hostage by Hamas terrorists since being abducted from his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct. 7 last year, died on Sunday morning while her son remained in captivity.
Gladys Siegel was reportedly 97 years old and died in the United States.
Keith Siegel’s daughter, Elan, shared the news in a Facebook post on Monday.
“My father’s mother passed away and my father couldn’t say goodbye to her because he has been a hostage by Hamas for over a year,” Elan wrote in the Facebook post. She then described the harrowing ordeal her 65-year-old father, who is a US citizen, faced when he was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, during the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack across southern Israel. She also expressed frustration regarding the failure to secure a hostage deal to free her father.
“My father was taken from his home by terrorists about twenty years old and is in dark tunnels, severe hunger and emotional and physical abuse about an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv,” she said. “He’s in the scariest hole in the world and you just let him stay there. They’re not bringing him home. My father couldn’t come to say goodbye to his mother who will never be able to return.”
“My father, a man who has done all his life nothing but good,” she added. “Who believes in the good and loves a person … Dad won’t be able to stand with us tomorrow at the cemetery, he won’t be able to say goodbye to the woman who raised him and loved him all his life. A violent and murderous terrorist organization writes our lives from the Gaza Strip to the Great United States, And the world is silent.”
Elan’s Facebook post was published hours after US President-elect Donald Trump threatened Hamas, saying there will be “hell to pay” if the US-designated terrorist organization does not release the remaining hostages by the time he returns to office on Jan. 20.
Roughly 1,200 people were murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their massacre in southern Israel, and 251 individuals were taken as hostages. Currently, 101 hostages remain in Gaza, 97 of whom were abducted during the Oct. 7 onslaught. At least 35 of those still in captivity have been confirmed dead by the Israel Defense Forces, according to Israeli media.
From Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a community of 1,000 people, 62 individuals were murdered and 19 were taken captive.
Hamas released a video in April that showed Keith appearing to speak under duress, pleading for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate a hostage release deal with Hamas. After the release of the video, Elan said, “Seeing my father today only emphasizes to all of us how much we must reach a deal as soon as possible and bring everyone home. I demand that the leaders of this country watch this video and see [our] father crying out for help.”
Keith’s wife, Aviva, was also taken hostage on Oct. 7. She was released as part of a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas in November 2023 after 51 days in captivity.
Over the weekend, Hamas released a propaganda video showing another American-Israeli hostage, Edan Alexander. Then on Monday, the IDF announced that a third American-Israeli hostage, Omer Neutra, who had previously been thought to be alive, was killed on Oct. 7 and his body is being held in Gaza.
Hamas is still holding the bodies of three other Israeli-American dual nationals, and three believed to be alive.
The post Mother of Hamas Hostage, US Citizen Keith Siegel Dies: ‘Couldn’t Say Goodbye’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
