‘I want to meet Donald Trump,’ former Israeli hostage tells ALL ISRAEL NEWS – believes Trump is last hope for getting her American husband out of Gaza alive

WASHINGTON, DC — “I’m sitting here – where all the important decisions happen – trying to scream, but no one is listening to me.”

That’s how Aviva Siegel feels.

Unheard. 

Powerless. 

Helpless.

And terrified.

That’s what she told my wife, Lynn, and me as we sat with her and one of her daughters in a rented home near the American capital.

The organizers of the “Hostage Family Forum” back in Tel Aviv found out that we are in Washington D.C. so they contacted me and asked if we would like to meet with Aviva.

Would we listen to her powerful, painful story and share it with Evangelical Christians through the ALL ISRAEL NEWS media platform and through our podcast – “Inside The Epicenter” – that we co-host for The Joshua Fund?

We immediately said yes. 

How could we not?

Over the past year, we have had the deeply humbling honor of meeting with a wide range of hostage families to hear and share their stories with Evangelical leaders and lay people. 

But this was the first time that we’d had the opportunity to meet and interview an Israeli who had been held hostage by Hamas and then released.

A STORY EVERY EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN NEEDS TO HEAR

What we heard was a haunting, harrowing saga of how Aviva Siegel and her husband, Keith – a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen – were taken captive on the morning of October 7, 2023.

They were shot.

Beaten.

Dragged by Hamas terrorists out of their home in Kfar Aza, an Israeli agricultural community along the Gaza border.

Then they were forced into their own car and driven by the terrorists deep inside of the Gaza Strip.

Taken deep underground into a terror tunnel where it was dark, hot, and humid.

And where it was almost impossible to breathe.

For the next two months, they were starved, tortured, humiliated – and moved 13 times.

And then one day, in late November 2023, Aviva – a 63-year-old Jewish woman who was born in South Africa, made aliyah to Israel as a child, met Keith as a teenager, and married him before her 20th birthday – was released.

Driven out of Gaza. 

Returned to Israel.

To the waiting arms and tear-filled eyes of her four grown children.

With several dozen other Israeli hostages.

But her beloved Keith was not among them. 

It’s a story every Evangelical Christian needs to hear.

IS ANYONE TRULY LISTENING?

Steadily losing weight, in severe pain from several broken ribs, Keith was not released by Hamas.

To this day – 431 days since being captured – he remains trapped and suffering in Gaza.

And Aviva is heartbroken. 

Grieving because she knows what he is going through.

Grieving because she feels so powerless to get him home. 

Grieving because she feels no one is listening. 

Technically, it’s not true, of course.

She has met with U.S. President Joe Biden three times and shared her story and Keith’s.

She has met with the UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

She has met with powerful leaders and influential journalists. 

But if anyone is truly listening, why aren’t they acting? 

Why aren’t the world’s most powerful people able to force Hamas to set all the captives free – immediately, now, before it’s too late?

AVIVA SIEGEL WANTS TO MEET WITH DONALD TRUMP

Now, Aviva Siegel has a new mission.

She wants to meet U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump.

Why?

Because she believes Trump may be her husband’s last hope for survival. 

“I would very much like to meet Mr. Trump,” she told us.

 “I’m hoping he is strong enough to get Keith out, and get all the hostages out.” 

Aviva was encouraged by Trump’s strong and clear warning to Iran and Hamas that there will be “all hell to pay” if all the hostages were not released by Jan. 20, when he is sworn in as Commander in Chief. 

It gave her hope that maybe all is not lost.

Perhaps, by speaking to Evangelicals who have Trump’s ear, she can get an audience with the incoming president, she figures. 

“It just doesn't seem right that these American hostages are still in Gaza,” she told us.

“How is it possible after a year and two months?”

“One of them is my husband, Keith. He’s now 65 years old. He was taken in his pajamas from his house and taken underneath the ground into a tunnel that’s dark, that’s hot, that you don't have any oxygen.”

“And to think that Keith is still there for a year and two months is too much – it’s just too much.”

Aviva was held hostage for 51 days and told us “that was too much.”

THE HOSTAGES ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME

“There wasn’t a minute for me just to relax. I was scared all the time. I was threatened so many times.”

“The worst thing for me was to see when they brutally treated Keith, when they brutally treated the girls with us. That was the hardest. I couldn't protect them.”

“I wanted just to scream” so many times, she said, but she couldn’t or she'd be killed.

“I had to, like, you know, close myself and try not to feel because it was just – I felt like my whole heart was going to explode.”

“We were treated in the worst way that any human being should be treated. Nobody – nobody in this world – should go through what I went through and what the hostages are going through.”

“If we don't hurry and get them out as soon as possible, we're going to get back dead bodies.”

“I was there. I've been talking about those tunnels for a year since I've come back.”

But “it just seems like my words, like, vanish into people's hearts because nothing has happened” – 101 innocent people are still held captive and no one is getting them back. 

“I nearly died so many times and it's the worst thing that anybody in this world should go through. It's not an ordinary jail. It's with terrorists that think that they are the kings of the world.”

“While they starve you, they eat.”

“They don’t bring you water while they drink water.”

“I had an infection in my stomach for most of the time I was in Gaza. I was so sick and I couldn't show them that I'm sick because I was scared that they would kill me.”

“We nearly suffocated. There was no oxygen for us at all.”

“And I said to Keith, ‘Just lie down and try and breathe,’ and that's all we did. We couldn't talk. We couldn't whisper. We couldn't move. We couldn't sit. We had to lie down and try and breathe.”