Family members of the remaining Israeli American hostages in Gaza warned ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress that they’ll view anything less than him using the speech to announce a hostage deal as a “failure.”

Speaking to reporters in the hours after Netanyahu touched down stateside on Monday, the families of “the American eight” called on the prime minister to accept the current hostage deal on the table for the sake of ending this anguishing chapter in their lives. The relatives said that while they did not know what Netanyahu planned to say during his address, they were clear on what they would find acceptable. 

“We’re at a point now where the defense establishment in Israel, the intelligence community, the negotiating team, and increasingly, the public, as shown by polling, are saying we must do a deal now to bring home the hostages,” Jon Polin, the father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, said. 

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is here this week to address Congress on Wednesday. We fully expect that his speech to Congress on Wednesday is going to be the announcement of this hostage deal that we’ve all been waiting for. Now is the right time, it’s 290 [days] past the right time, but now is the time to close this deal. We view any speech that is not the announcement of the signing and closing of a hostage deal to be a total failure,” Polin continued. 

Polin added that he believes that anything “the Israeli government has not yet accomplished [in the war to eliminate Hamas] has to wait and happen at some other date. It cannot happen any longer on the backs of our loved ones. They have paid a tremendous price, and now it’s time to bring them home. They no longer need to be the ones to continue to pay the price as Israel tries to get a better deal.”

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of Sagui Dekel-Chen, and Hagit Chen, the father of murdered hostage Itay Chen, also made note of their disapproval with Netanyahu for coming to Congress without a deal. They said they planned to raise this with the prime minister during their numerous meetings with him this week. 

“He is here now, he chose to come. He chose to come to the United States, invited of course by Congress, but he chose to come. That has to mean something. It has to mean something to speak to a joint session of Congress, and not just political theater for domestic consumption in Israel,” Dekel-Chen said. 

“This is the contradiction in the cynicism that we’re here to call out and to demand that change now, because he’s here. He’s not somewhere else. He’s here in the United States, invited and accepted to come speak to a joint session. It’s sacred ground. It’s not a place for political theater,” he later added. 

Ronen Neutra, the father of Omer Neutra, told the room of journalists that the group planned to tell Netanyahu of their belief that “there is no perfect deal and we expect him to take it as is.” 

Orna Neutra, Omer’s mother, accused Netanyahu of being more focused on military accomplishments than the number of hostages freed when she and Ronen met with him in January. 

Netanyahu told the families of American hostages, as well as 13 other relatives of hostages who traveled with him to the U.S., that the trip will “give us an opportunity to present to the American people the importance of their support for our efforts, together with them, to bring the release of all the hostages … We are determined to bring them all back. The conditions for their return are ripening, simply because we are putting very very strong pressure on Hamas.”

However, the prime minister told the families that he is “unwilling under any circumstances to give up on the victory over Hamas. If we concede that, we are in danger from Iran’s entire axis of evil.”

Netanyahu told the families that the deal is “a process” in which not all the hostages will return at once, but that he would make sure that after the first tranche is released, Israel will still have leverage so that the others are freed.

In addition to their meetings with Netanyahu, the families met on Monday with White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk, the National Security Council’s coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, and will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House later this week. While they do not have any meetings with Vice President Kamala Harris on the books for this week, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Hersh’s mother, praised Harris as committed to their fight for a hostage deal. 

The group will also meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on both sides of the aisle, as well as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. All of the American hostages’ families have been invited by different members of Congress to Wednesday’s speech; Itay Chen’s parents are attending as guests of Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), while others are still deciding whether to attend. 

Other hostages’ relatives who accompanied Netanyahu are Ayelet Asraf Samerano, mother of Yonatan Samerano; Shaaban al-Sayed, father of Hisham al-Sayed; Ofek Shaul, brother of Oron Shaul; Tali Gvili, mother of Ran Gvili; freed hostage Noa Argamani and her father, Yaakov; and Ditza and Emuna Or, the mother and sister of Avinatan Or, Argamani’s boyfriend who remains in captivity. In addition, Eitan Yahalomi’s mother, Esther; Omer Shem Tov’s mother, Shelly; and Eliyahu Bibas, the father of Yarden Bibas and grandfather of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, flew to Washington with Netanyahu. Yehoshua Shani, father of fallen soldier Ori Shani, and Yitzhak Bontzel, father of fallen soldier Amit Bontzel, traveled with the delegation, as well.