Hostage Father Jonathan Deckel-Henn's Resilience and Hope (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: And joining us right now is Jonathan Deckel-Henn, the father of Israeli-American hostage Sagi Deckel-Henn. Thank you so much for joining us here on ABC News Live. I want to start with your reaction to this morning's news. Four more hostages now being released. And as we saw those images reunited with their families, what were you thinking?

Speaker 2: I'm overjoyed for these young women and their families. You know, I know exactly the kind of hell that they've been living through and not the hostages themselves, but certainly their families for this long. I can only imagine the added level of concern that families, parents of young women who have been held captive for that long by clearly murderous, savage terrorists. So I can feel the relief coming from them, even from far away. And of course, my concern that 90 more hostages need to come home, including a handful of women, two little boys and old men. This will only be done when everyone is back home.

Speaker 1: And your son, Sagi Deckel-Henn, he's 36 years old. He is on the list of the 33 hostages to be released in this phase of the ceasefire. What are your hopes for his release?

Speaker 2: My hopes are mostly for his now three young daughters. What you see there is Sagi with his wife and two older daughters. You know, his seven months pregnant wife and those two little girls survived nine hours of a massacre on our kibbutz that killed 59 civilians, men, women, little kids on our kibbutz, which sparked, of course, the subsequent war with Hamas. I need him reunited with his beautiful young family in the same way that I need the other 29 hostages from our kibbutz, including that same female civilian that you've been talking about. I need them all to be reunited, those who are still alive and those that we know for sure have already been murdered by Hamas, keeping in mind that many, far too many of the remaining hostages have been murdered already. And so this is a gargantuan task and we're incredibly grateful to the U.S. administration, the Biden administration for getting us this far and to the Trump administration for really pushing it forward and making it so that hostages are now coming home.

Speaker 1: Jonathan, I think when people are watching this interview here, they're probably wondering how is he so strong? How have you been able to spend these 15 months holding on to so much hope?

Speaker 2: The hostages deserve it. And it's been my job to get my son home, to reunite him with my granddaughters and to bring those other 28 people of my extended family from our kibbutz to get them home, those to reunite with their families and those for a proper burial amongst their loved ones. I'd like to think that any person would do the same thing. But these have been hellish, desperate times, because on the other side of this, there is, well, actually two murderous terrorist organizations that massacred, raped, looted and destroyed on October 7th, a year and a half ago. And so nothing is for sure. And we really do need the U.S. government, now the Trump administration, to keep its finger on it, to make sure that all sides comply with all stages of this agreement to end the madness, also end the madness in Gaza for the two million Gazans who have been, in a sense, hostages of Hamas since October 7th, if not before.

Speaker 1: Jonathan Deckelhen, we are thinking of you and your family. We so appreciate you taking some time to join us here on this historic moment and hopefully soon bringing an end to all of these issues here with the families involved. Jonathan, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.