Local community members express cautious optimism over hostage deal
“It’s what everybody wished for, just to see those moms hugging their daughters."

Alice Sahel-Azagury has spent countless hours since Hamas ignited its current war against Israel helping organize dozens of vigils in Squirrel Hill as part of a volunteer team helmed by David Dvir. She distributes posters of those in captivity, marks pieces of masking tape with the number of days the hostages have been imprisoned and helps arrange speakers to tell each hostage’s story for scores of community members gathered in solidarity.
“Once you speak about someone, you just feel like it’s a connection,” Sahel-Azagury told the Chronicle.
As a deal between Israel and the terrorist group took effect on Sunday, and the first three hostages, Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher, were released after 471 days of captivity, Sahel-Azagury felt a mix of emotions.
“It’s what everybody wished for, just to see those moms hugging their daughters,” said Sahel-Azagury, who moved to Pittsburgh from France about eight years ago because of rising antisemitism there.
Still, she can’t shake the anxiety that comes with not knowing how many of the 33 hostages scheduled to be released in the first phase of the deal will be alive.
“So, I’m scared in the coming days,” she said.

A second stage of the deal, which has yet to be fully negotiated, would see a further Israeli military withdrawal and permanent end to the fighting in exchange for the release of the remaining living hostages. In a third phase, the military withdrawal will be complete and reconstruction of Gaza would begin, as the bodies of deceased hostages are returned to Israel. In each stage, hostages will be freed in exchange for a much larger number of Palestinian security prisoners.
Among the Palestinians to go free are 737 jailed detainees and security prisoners, some of whom are serving life sentences for murder.
If all goes smoothly, Palestinians, Arab states and Israel still need to agree on a vision for postwar Gaza, a massive task involving security guarantees for Israel and billions of dollars in investment for rebuilding.
Local community leaders expressed relief and hope with the announcement of the deal, despite the high price Israel is forced to pay for return of the hostages.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Jeff Finkelstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. “You know, I think with any of these deals, there are always bumps in the road, and we saw that over the last few days, but I am cautiously optimistic that 30-plus hostages or their bodies will be returning to Israel [in the first phase of the deal].”
Whether the deal will be good for Israel in the long run is unclear at this point, he said, but “it’s really good for the hostage families that have been looking for this. It seems to me, from what I’ve been reading, that the majority of Israelis are for it; obviously, there are those that are not. But hopefully it can lead to the return of the remaining hostages over the next period of time, and God willing, lead to a time when Israeli young soldiers aren’t being killed in combat.”
Julie Paris, the Mid-Atlantic regional director of StandWithUs, and a constant presence at community gatherings supporting those in captivity, expressed solidarity with the hostages and their families. “Each life freed from the clutches of terrorists is vital and precious, and we pray that every single one of the 98 hostages will come home to their families,” she said.
“We also recognize the complexity of this deal and the many challenges that lie ahead. Hostages are to be released in multiple stages. Further negotiations between Israel and Hamas will be required to free all of them and end this war, which has been horrific for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons, including many with blood on their hands, will be a deeply painful price to pay…. Going forward, we call on the international community to support Israel as it defends itself against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran’s regime and others who seek its destruction. Those who will be involved in the reconstruction of Gaza must help prevent Hamas from rearming, so that the devastation of the Oct. 7 war does not repeat itself. Israelis and Palestinians deserve the chance to rebuild their lives, free from the genocidal hatred and violence Hamas represents.”
Rabbi Danny Schiff, the Gefsky community scholar at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, made aliyah in 2009 and lives in Israel six months a year. On a Jan. 17 Facebook post about the deal, he wrote:
“[W]e will need to remind the world of this fundamental truth: Had Hamas proposed – on any day since October 7, 2023 – to return every single hostage and to lay down their weapons, Israel would have immediately agreed to end hostilities. All the loss of life, all the protracted suffering, all of the destruction of Gaza is because Hamas wanted it. The blood of every Palestinian and Israeli innocent is on their hands, and on the hands of their enablers. Their cult of death, which still looks forward to destroying Israel even at the price of thousands more Palestinian lives, is a gruesome and inhuman ideology that must be expunged.”
“Until that day comes, we can at least take heart from this: Israel is strong,” Schiff continued. “I am not referring to Israel’s military strength, though the IDF’s ability to diminish Hamas, liberate Lebanon from the stranglehold of Hezbollah, and break the Iranian grip on the Middle East has been remarkable. Rather, I am referring to something else that should not be overlooked: The overwhelming majority of Israelis maintain that it is critical to bring home all the hostages, even though it requires the release of hundreds of murderers. There are those who hold that this type of lopsided deal is fundamentally irrational. They are right. And yet we continue to do such deals. Why? Because the idea that we would leave one life behind that could be saved, or ignore the plight of one family that could be reunited, or walk away from our responsibility to sustain the spark of human hope – is simply anathema to us.”
Some anti-Israel groups hailed the deal as a victory for Hamas.
Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Pittsburgh, for example, posted on Instagram: “As we celebrate the ceasefire in Gaza and the victory of the Palestinian resistance over the brutal Zionist regime, we also understand this is not the end of our student movement, but only the beginning. Our demands go beyond just a ceasefire; we demand an end of the siege on Gaza, the removal of settlements and the apartheid system in the West Bank, and the liberation of every single inch of Palestinian land from Gaza to Jerusalem.”
Rep. Summer Lee, Squirrel Hill’s congresswoman and a vociferous critic of the Jewish state, opined about the deal on X (formerly Twitter), but failed to mention Hamas and the Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war; instead, she blamed the conflict entirely on Israel, referring to Israel’s response as a “genocide.”
Ben Case, who is on the steering committee of Not On Our Dime — the organization that seeks to put a referendum on Pittsburgh’s May ballot that would forbid the city from doing business with Israel — spoke to the Chronicle on his own behalf, and not as a spokesperson for the campaign.
“I hope all of the people who are held hostage by Hamas will be able to be reunited with their families, and those that have already, that’s a blessing,” Case said. “I hope all of the people who are held captive by Israel are able to reunite with their families, the Palestinian people who are held captive by Israel.
“I hope that the people in Gaza get respite from the constant violence, planes and drones overhead and are able to return to what’s left of their homes,” he continued. “I hope they get the humanitarian aid they need now to survive in the devastation of Gaza. I hope all the people in Israel as well are able to return to their homes. A lot of people have been displaced. And most of all, I hope it leads to a lasting peace.”
Case said he also hopes that “the Netanyahu regime doesn’t spoil the deal. I know they get enormous pressure from the far-right contingent of the Israeli government, who doesn’t want to see an end to the war, who wants to see an escalation. And I think the Netanyahu regime has been making decisions in a very self-interested way. So there’s reasons to be worried, but I’m certainly very hopeful.”
Asked if he was concerned whether Hamas might “spoil the deal,” Case said the “onus is on the Israeli government because they have almost all the power in the situation.”
Case said that despite the deal, Not On Our Dime would continue its efforts toward getting the referendum on the ballot.
“The referendum language is very clear that it would apply to any country engaged in certain egregiously moral atrocious acts like genocide, like ethnic cleansing, like apartheid. And I believe that does apply to the state of Israel, but I also think it should apply to any country,” he said.
Case said that the wording of the petition “is not specifically targeted at Israel.” Israel, however, is the only country identified by name in the petition. Moreover, at the top of the Not On Our Dime Pittsburgh website are the words: “We have the chance to pass a local law to move the needle toward ending the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”
Finkelstein recognizes that the implementation of the deal will not quell the efforts of anti-Israel groups that have been calling for a cease-fire since shortly after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack.
“The reason is that these groups are not about a cease-fire,” he said. “These groups are about delegitimizing and demonizing the state of Israel. They are about BDS and we need to continue to fight back against them.
“We need the community to continue to stand up to things like this referendum initiative and not let up,” Finkelstein added. “Let’s make sure that people, the readers of the Jewish Chronicle, make sure that they and their friends do not sign the petition to put this anti-Israel referendum on the ballot in May.” PJC
Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. The Times of Israel contributed to this report.
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