Melania Trump Meets Hostage Survivors Keith and Aviva Siegel on the Anniversary of His Release

Melania Trump, First Lady of the United States, met last evening (Wednesday) with hostage survivors Keith and Aviva Siegel, marking the anniversary of Keith’s release from Hamas captivity.

During the meeting, Melania Trump referred to a previous encounter she had with Aviva. “After Aviva was freed, she called me, wanted to see me and we set up a meeting in New York in January 2025. It was an emotional meeting and it is captured on camera and available to see in my new film Melania,” she said. “Aviva was a warrior. She was fighting very hard for Keith and I know he suffered a lot. I’m happy to see you healthy at home with your family and I know you’re giving back your time, your energy to other people”.

Keith thanked Melania and President Trump for their involvement, saying: “I want to thank you for being a caring, compassionate person for supporting and helping Aviva during those difficult days…I am eternally grateful to you and President Trump for bringing me home and for bringing all of the hostages back to their families”.

.@FLOTUS meets at the White House with Aviva Siegel, who was held hostage by Hamas for 51 days, and her husband, Keith Siegel, who was held hostage by Hamas for 484 days. pic.twitter.com/Z5NBEXGP7F

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 4, 2026

Aviva also joined in expressing her gratitude, noting: “I want to just tell you that I decided to write a book and it’s dedicated to my grandchildren that can’t hear the stories because they are very, very hard stories to hear. And in the book, I wrote thank you to you because you helped to bring people home”.

Keith’s Captivity and Release

Keith Siegel is a dual American-Israeli citizen, originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who was living with his wife Aviva in Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel when Hamas militants launched their deadly attack on October 7, 2023. During that assault, nearly 1,200 people were butchered, many first tortured and raped, and 250 hostages were taken into Gaza by Hamas fighters. Siegel and his wife were among those abducted from their home that day.

Siegel spent 484 days (over 15 months) in captivity after being taken into the Gaza Strip, enduring extremely harsh conditions. According to multiple reports, he was moved repeatedly between underground tunnels and other locations, received minimal food and water, and was subjected to physical and psychological abuse by his captors. He described being kicked, spat on, and dependent on his captors for basic survival needs, and he has said the experience was profoundly traumatic.

While Aviva was also kidnapped on October 7, she was released earlier, after around 51 day, during a temporary ceasefire hostage agreement in November 2023, leaving Keith alone for the remainder of his captivity.

The first moments of Keith’s transfer to IDF forces after release

Siegel’s release came on February 1, 2025, as part of a phased hostage release agreement negotiated between Israel, Hamas, and mediators. On that day, he was freed along with several other long-held captives and transferred to Israeli medical care after more than a year in Gaza. His return was marked by emotional reunions with family and statements of gratitude toward the negotiating governments and supporters.

Since his release, Siegel has spoken publicly about his experiences and shared harrowing details of his captivity, also advocating for the hostages were still held in Gaza, and greater unity within Israeli society.

On one occasion, he donated blood in memory of Yonah Brief, of blessed memory, a combat soldier and medic in the elite Duvdevan unit, who died of critical wounds sustained during the fighting on October 7. “It is a tremendous honor for us to stand alongside the family of Yonah Brief, of blessed memory, who fought heroically in Kfar Aza on October 7,” Keith said at the time. “May all the people of Israel know how to stand together—in difficult days, and also in days of joy.”

His ordeal has also been linked with a personal reaffirmation of his Jewish faith, which he says helped sustain him during his imprisonment. In an interview with the religious radio station Kol Barama he recounted how he and his fellow captives began to come closer to G-d.

“Judaism didn’t really speak to me when I was younger,” Siegel said. “But in captivity, I reconnected.”

He explained that prayers resurfaced from childhood memory, and that together with other hostages they taught one another verses and blessings. “Every day I said Shema Yisrael and recited blessings over food. Since my release, I’ve continued strengthening myself spiritually.”

Siegel also revealed that throughout his captivity, his captors repeatedly tried to pressure him to convert to Islam. “They moved me through 33 different places—tunnels, schools, apartments, even a stairwell—and the entire time they tried to persuade me to convert,” he recounted. “They asked me to repeat a sentence whose meaning I didn’t even know. The more they tried to push me to convert, the more it reinforced my sense of belonging to the Jewish people, a people that has endured so much suffering. I drew deep inspiration from the generations of Jews who suffered before us, and that’s when I began to pray and recite blessings. It gave me real strength.”

One major tenet in the Jewish faith is the idea of gratitude, expressed, among others, in the Sages’ interpretation that Moses refrained from striking the Nile in the first two plagues in Egypt since he owed the water a debt of gratitude for keeping him alive in his first days. If so for inanimate object, how much more for human beings who choose and make an effort to do us good.

In that light, the Siegels’ decision to come and personally thank Melania Trump for her efforts on their behalf is not only a beautiful moment of unity and connection across the world, or a deeply human symbol of Israeli-American solidarity, but an act of faith and religion.