{"id":28140,"date":"2024-06-06T22:00:55","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T03:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=28140"},"modified":"2024-06-06T22:01:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T03:01:06","slug":"families-of-us-hostages-in-gaza-plead-with-americans-dont-forget-your-fellow-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=28140","title":{"rendered":"Families of US hostages in Gaza plead with Americans: Don\u2019t forget your fellow citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Jonathan Dekel-Chen dreams of the moment when his abducted 35-year-old son, Sagui, is reunited with his wife and three young children, including a daughter born two months after the devastating attack on Israel that initiated the war.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruby Chen longs to recover the remains of his 19-year-old son, Itay \u2014 a soldier who Israeli intelligence says was killed in the Oct. 7 attack \u2014 so that he can be buried and his \u201csoul\u201d finally given \u201ca place to rest\u201d in accordance with Jewish practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many Americans, the Israeli-Hamas war is seen through the daily reports of Israeli ground incursions and airstrikes in Gaza<\/u><\/a> and warnings of a looming famine<\/u><\/a>. There are college campuses riven by protests and great uncertainty over cease-fire prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the families of the Americans taken hostage<\/u><\/a> are laser-focused on one thing: their loved ones. They fear that with all the tumult of the war, Americans often forget about their fellow citizens who remain missing. They\u2019re doing whatever they can to make sure they aren\u2019t forgotten and to keep pushing to get them — or their remains — back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor most of us, we are doers. So we wake up in the morning and we say, what are we doing today? What\u2019s on the agenda?\u201d said Ronen Neutra, whose son, Omer, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen and Israel Defense Forces soldier who was ambushed and pulled from a tank on Oct. 7. \u201cWhat can I do to make sure that my son will come back home today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The families were in Washington this week for meetings with U.S. government officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose Justice Department is investigating the deaths and kidnapping of Americans<\/u><\/a> at the hands of Hamas. The meetings came at a sensitive time as the Biden administration endeavors to get Israel and Hamas to commit to a cease-fire deal to end the eight-month-old war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Speaking as a group Wednesday to The Associated Press, the families recounted their shared sadness, angst and uncertainty but also their hopes for a resolution that would result in the release of scores of hostages, including their loved ones. Eight Americans are believed to be held by Hamas, including three who were killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three-part proposal<\/u><\/a> described on May 31 by President Joe Biden calls for a full and complete cease-fire, a withdrawal of Israeli forces from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages \u2014 first, women, the elderly and the wounded and later, all living remaining captives, including male soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only way they are going to emerge alive from these Hamas tunnels is through some sort of negotiated agreement with the devil, which is Hamas,\u201d said Dekel-Chen, whose son was kidnapped while protecting his kibbutz, Nir Oz, which endured a disproportionate toll<\/u><\/a> of murders and hostage-taking by Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHamas clearly has to be forced or coerced to enter negotiations and complete them,\u201d he said, and must decide whether it\u2019s about \u201cperpetual warfare and perpetual suffering of its own people\u201d or about \u201csome better future.\u201d The Israeli government, for its part, must \u201cstay the course\u201d and \u201cput aside any kind of narrow political interests\u201d for the good of the country, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That won\u2019t necessarily be easy, given the possibility that a cease-fire deal would shatter Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s governing coalition and make him more vulnerable to a conviction in his corruption trial<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Netanyahu says he is committed to bringing the hostages home, but also says he won\u2019t end the war without destroying Hamas. He and hard-liners in his coalition fear a full Israeli withdrawal before reaching this goal could allow Hamas to claim victory<\/u><\/a> and reconstitute itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meetings with American officials were the latest in a series of sit-downs that began last fall, shortly after the Hamas attack in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much has changed since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting Israeli assault on Gaza has displaced most of the territory\u2019s population and killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry<\/u><\/a>, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel has drawn global criticism, with a U.N. court<\/u><\/a> ordering Israel to halt its offensive in the southern city of Rafah, while American universities from Columbia to Stanford have been convulsed by protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Israel, thousands have protested the government<\/u><\/a>, criticizing Netanyahu over his approach to the war and demanding he do more to bring back the roughly 80 hostages believed to be alive, along with the remains of 43 pronounced dead<\/u><\/a>. Many hostage families have been at the forefront of the protest movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American hostage families were measured in discussing the Israeli government\u2019s approach, placing the onus more on Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they say the warm embrace they have received from U.S. officials exposes a disconnect with the general American public, which they consider to be more apathetic to their plight and ignorant of the fact that so many hostages remain in captivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s also a lack of knowledge,\u201d Chen said. \u201cI think the majority of the U.S people are not aware that on October 7th, this was also an attack on the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compounding the sadness eight months into the war is a steady drip of somber Israeli government announcements of additional hostage fatalities \u2014 most recently on Monday, when the military declared<\/u><\/a> four hostages who\u2019d been kidnapped on Oct. 7 as now dead. Adding to the pain, the four men had been seen alive in videos released by Hamas, meaning they died in captivity, possibly from Israeli fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen spent months hoping his son, an NBA-loving soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was alive only to learn earlier this year that he had been killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was taken hostage even though he was killed. Who does that? Savages. Who takes dead people as negotiation chips?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrea Weinstein received similar news after the Israeli government in late December<\/u><\/a> disclosed the deaths of her sister Judy \u2014 previously thought to be among the living hostages \u2014 and her sister\u2019s husband, Gad Haggai. Weinstein, a teacher with a creative spirit who used puppets to help students find their voices, was on a morning walk with her husband when the attack unfolded, her sister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their bodies remain in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Optimistic feelings come in cycles for Omer Neutra\u2019s mother, Orna, who said she could not have imagined eight months ago that the family would still be in the same position now. She is hopeful but also guarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOctober 6, it was a different life,\u201d she said. \u201cNothing is the same for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Jonathan Dekel-Chen dreams of the moment when his abducted 35-year-old son, Sagui, is reunited with his wife and three young children, including a daughter born two months after the devastating attack on Israel that initiated the war. Ruby Chen longs to recover the remains of his 19-year-old son, Itay \u2014 a soldier who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":28141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1199,28874,28875,1151],"class_list":["post-28140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-americans","tag-do-not-forget","tag-fellow-citizens","tag-gaza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28142,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28140\/revisions\/28142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}