lines of communication between the White House and Israel remain open but it doesn't appear to be getting negotiators any closer to a hostage release deal President Biden today told reporters he's had extensive conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the last few days telling the Prime Minister a temporary ceasefire is needed to secure the safe release of the Israeli hostages still being held captive by Hamas Biden is also urging Israel's military to hold off on a land invasion in Rafa while talks continue in tenly New Jersey discussions around releasing the hostages are deeply personal every week a group meets to walk through the burrow chanting and keeping a spotlight on the Israelis who are still being held captive including one of their own 20-year-old tenly high school graduate Edon Alexander Ted Goldberg has the story a weekly walk in tenly is Raising awareness for for The Hundreds captured by Hamas on October 7th including tenly native Edon Alexander the world cannot stop thinking about the hostages every day I uh wear my pin up here I change the numbers for the number of days that they've been held in captivity posted on Instagram I email President Biden every day we have to keep them on the top of our minds every week anywhere from 30 people to hundreds of people meet up walk through tenly and record a video demanding help for hostage is held by Hamas all those videos are captured from all the groups around the world they're made into like five or six minute videos so you'll see from town to town people uh standing up and saying bring them home now uh and name the town and they're then sent out to the various families to show them um that everybody cares and supports and is with them Elon kravic is one of the Walkers here trying to keep hope alive and bring atten attention to Edon Alexander who was captured by Hamas while serving in the Israel Defense Forces you definitely want to support our community um it's a very tough time myself I'm Israeli um I was born there I still have a lot of family there so um it's a little bit of your time that you can just kind of put out and raise awareness and um support the family run for their lives is a global organization Roberto simrat organized a tenly chapter because of his personal connection to Alexander I swim with a gentleman whose grandson is best friends with Idan one of the hostages and you just feel you you want to do something to help the weekly walks through tenly run 18 minutes each as organizers tell me that's not a number chosen at random 18 minutes is a special number in Judaism uh it's uh it equates to uh High which is life uh and the idea was uh 18 minutes before on Fridays before Shabbat starts while Shabbat is a day of rest for Jewish people the folks here aren't resting it's been overwhelming uh the number of people who joined one of the walks we had a th000 people and idan's parents uh were here um to talk to to everybody and we We Gather a lot of people to show the support for them it's very heartwarming to see that people are very um supportive of it and that are coming out in strong uh numbers to show their love um and kind of just kind of you know create a community around here to uh bring attention to it around the world Alexander graduated from tenly high school two years ago he's one of about a 100 people held hostage by Hamas as folks hold out hope that he can make it home safely in tenly I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News NJ Spotlight News