The parents of fallen American Israeli soldier Omer Neutra, whose body is being held captive by Hamas in Gaza, denounced the Israeli government’s decision to resume the war against the terror group in the Strip, saying the move puts the remaining hostages in peril.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Ruderman Family Foundation’s annual conference at the University of Haifa, Ronen and Orna Neutra said that they did not believe that the strikes launched by Israel against Hamas in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning would pressure the terror group into releasing additional hostages.

“There’s an understanding by the two governments — the American and the Israeli —  that [renewed strikes] are the way to return the hostages. We are not at all convinced that this is the case,” Ronen Neutra said.

“We know of 41 hostages who were killed in captivity, either from fire by our troops or by Hamas murdering them because the IDF was approaching,” Orna Neutra said. “The concerns of the hostage family are clear. The Israeli government has had 15 months of war to bring [the hostages] back in different ways, and in fact only the current deal has brought them back.”

The ceasefire that took effect on Jan. 19 involved Hamas releasing 33 hostages, including the bodies of 12 Israelis, in exchange for over 1,700 terrorists, including mass murderers, Israeli military withdrawal from much of Gaza and allowing Palestinians to move from southern to northern Gaza. 

With 59 hostages remaining in Gaza – between 21 to 24 of them thought to be living – Hamas rejected all proposals to continue the ceasefire through Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that began at the end of February, and Passover, which ends on April 19. The Trump administration’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, proposed that Hamas release five living and 10 dead Israeli hostages, and Israel would lift its current blockade and free dozens of Palestinian prisoners. Hamas would only agree to release one living hostage — Israeli American IDF soldier Edan Alexander — and the bodies of four dual nationals, and only on the condition that Israel would start talks on further phases of the ceasefire.

The Israeli military conducted airstrikes throughout the Gaza Strip early Tuesday morning, targeting Hamas commanders, weapons caches, rocket launchpads and other military sites, in what the Israel Defense Forces dubbed Operation Strength and Sword. According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, some 400 people were killed in the strikes; these figures could not immediately be confirmed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement on Tuesday evening that the IDF operation would intensify. “From now on, negotiations will be conducted only under fire,” he said, promising: “This is only the beginning.”

Ronen Neutra noted that freed hostage Noa Argamani, who recently met with President Donald Trump on a trip that the Neutras helped organize with the Hostage Families Forum, was injured by an Israeli Air Force airstrike that killed Yossi Sharabi, who was being held captive with her. “So we know that even if the Israel Defense Forces thinks that it knows where the captives are, there’s a very good chance that they don’t know where all of them are,” he said.

Ronen added that for families of slain hostages like their son, who was killed in the Oct. 7 attacks, the concern is that the airstrikes will make it harder to uncover their loved ones’ bodies.

The Neutras, who are both Israeli but have lived in Plainview, N.Y., for many years, said that they — and their son — have served as a bridge between the American Jewish community and Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks.

They expressed amazement and appreciation for the national and local American Jewish communities’ outpouring of support for them, alongside disappointment with the mainstream American Jewish communal organizations, whom they said did not sufficiently support the cause of the hostages.

“You have to differentiate between the community and the big organizations, which are closer, more similar and cooperate more with the line of the Israeli government,” Orna said. “We were very disappointed as families of a hostage and as American citizens by leaders of the Jewish community to express an adamant position about putting the hostages as the top priority.”

Ronen pointed toward the mainstream Jewish communal organizations’ inclination for deference to Israel as the reason why these groups were less forceful about the hostage issue. 

“The wall-to-wall support that most of the Jewish organizations have for Israel, no matter what the government does, worked against us,” he said.

“But what we’ve experienced within the communities from the people, it’s unbelievable support throughout this past year,” Orna said. “When they announced that Omer had been killed, thousands of Jews from all of the metropolitan New York area came to his memorial service and shiva. They stood in line, waiting in the cold to come in.”

A Long Island native, Neutra, who was a dual citizen, spent his youth within the folds of the Conservative movement and its institutions, studying at Solomon Schechter School of Long Island, working as a lifeguard at Ramah’s Nyack camp and being active in the United Synagogue Youth, eventually becoming the president of its Metropolitan New York (METNY) region. He also attended Young Judaea’s Sprout Lake in the summers.

With this background, Neutra — who made aliyah after high school and served as a tank commander — represented someone that Conservative Jews could connect with personally based on shared experiences.

“Omer is really a bridge between communities. He was always a bridge between communities,” Orna said.

The Neutras noted a number of ways in which their suburban New York community still honors the memory of their son: A local bagel shop has a table dedicated to him; a large donation was made in his honor to the local JCC; and next month the city of Plainview will rename a street for Omer.

They added that while they appreciate these efforts, they are not yet at the stage of memorializing Omer. 

“We will think about, ‘How do we keep that burning flame of leadership and the love of Israel and the connection to Israel as his legacy?’” Ronen said. “But we’re not there yet. We’re still in the fight to get him and the rest of the hostages back.”

Speaking about him in the present tense, Orna described Omer as a natural leader, who was dedicated to making sure that everyone at an event felt included.

“He’s the kind of person who will walk into a room and be thinking, ‘OK, who’s going to be my friend?’ And not only ‘Who’s going to be my friend, how do I get everyone involved and how do I connect people?’” she said.

The Neutras lauded both the Biden and Trump administrations for their efforts on behalf of the hostages. 

“We were with [then-]President Biden and [former National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan just after the election. We asked him that the teams will work together and not wait for the inauguration,” Ronen said. “And both administrations agreed that that’s the right thing to do. It was nonpolitical, it was bipartisan.”

They added that President Donald Trump, who first called them two weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, did not immediately understand why they were so determined to retrieve their son’s body.  

“We’ve seen how Trump became instrumental, including the fact that he understands now more than before the importance of bringing remains to burial, which he didn’t understand before,” Ronen said. “It was after we explained how important it is for us and how important it is for the Jewish people to bury our children in the Holy Land and not leave them back in Gaza. And he was quite amazed that we were fighting so hard and continue to fight, even though we learned that Omer was killed. And he told us that during the shiva when he called us.”
eJewishPhilanthropy news reporter Nira Dayanim and Jewish Insider senior political correspondent Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.