Hamas list names 3 hostages set for release Sunday. Chapel Hill, NC native not among them
Chapel Hill native Keith Siegel is on a list of hostages that could be released under the latest Gaza ceasefire, but he’s not expected to gain his freedom on Sunday.
Siegel’s family had been anticipating his return home since Wednesday, when Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas reached the latest, 42-day ceasefire. The 65-year-old, who has dual American and Israeli citizenship, has spent 471 days as a hostage in Gaza.
On Sunday morning, the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a list of three women who they said would be released soon, according to an NPR report. An NBC News crew later reported seeing the hostages being transferred into Red Cross custody. Israeli Defense Forces and the Israel Security agency told the crew that the hostages are now in Israeli custody, the report said.
The women are the first of 33 hostages — women, children, sick and older adults — that could be freed. Four more hostages could be released in seven days, and the rest could be freed over the remaining five weeks, including another American, Sagui Dekel-Chen, according to CBS News.
Siegel and his wife Adrienne “Aviva” Siegel were among 251 people kidnapped in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Another 1,200 people were killed, sparking the war between Israel and Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist group.
The fighting, which continued with Israeli airstrikes until the ceasefire early Sunday morning, killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israeli officials say 94 hostages remain in Gaza, and at least 34 could be dead.
Israel has agreed to release over 730 Palestinian prisoners in the exchange in addition to over 1,100 Gaza residents being held by Israel, The Washington Post reported.
Five Americans remain among the 61 Hamas-held hostages. The Washington Post reported in December that 117 hostages have been freed since Oct. 7, and 72 have been killed.
Negotiations are continuing for the remaining hostages, including male soldiers, CBS News reported. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining hostages without a lasting ceasefire and Israel’s full withdrawal, the report said.
From a home on the border to hostages
Aviva and Keith Siegel, a U.S.-Israeli citizen, have lived for 40 years in the Kfar Aza settlement near the Gaza border fence. Aviva Siegel is a native of South Africa who immigrated to Israel as a girl.
Hamas militants kidnapped the couple, who have four children and five grandchildren, from their home in Kfar Aza on Oct. 7. They were driven in their car, along with a neighbor and two children, to Gaza.
Sixty-four people in Kfar Aza were killed, and only about 50 of the 1,000 residents who lived there before the attack have returned, according to The Times of Israel.
The Israeli Army found their father’s car a few days later, the couple’s daughter Shir Siegel said in an interview for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a volunteer-based organization working toward the safe return of all Israeli hostages.
Aviva Siegal was among 104 hostages released 51 days later. She was forced to leave behind her husband, who had broken ribs, she has said in interviews. The couple’s daughter Elan Siegel said in a Facebook post Siegel has been without his daily medication.
The family has participated in demonstrations, addressed lawmakers in the U.S. and Israel, and pleaded with President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump to press Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire that could bring all the hostages home.
About her own time as a hostage, Aviva Siegel has shared “harrowing experiences and severe violence of all kinds — physical, emotional, and sexual,” another daughter Elan Siegel wrote on Facebook in December.
Aviva Siegel told McClatchy in April that her husband told her before she was released that his hope was to see his mother again.
Keith Siegel’s mother died on Dec. 1 in Chapel Hill. Gladys Siegel, 97, never learned about her son’s situation because of her age, the family has said.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson told The News & Observer that the Siegel family won’t be speaking with the media until after Keith Siegel is released. Aviva Siegel is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday, she said.
This story was originally published January 19, 2025 at 11:03 AM with the headline "Hamas list names 3 hostages set for release Sunday. Chapel Hill, NC native not among them."
