Father of hostage Itay Chen says government broke contract with public on October 7

Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center

Ruby Chen, father of hostage Itay Chen, speaks at the 24-hour Tel Aviv rally for the hostages to mark 100 days since the October 7 Hamas onslaught, January 14, 2024. (Screenshot)
Ruby Chen, father of hostage Itay Chen, speaks at the 24-hour Tel Aviv rally for the hostages to mark 100 days since the October 7 Hamas onslaught, January 14, 2024. (Screenshot)

Ruby Chen, father of hostage Itay Chen, speaks at the 24-hour Tel Aviv rally for the hostages about Tomer Leibowitz, Itay’s friend and comrade who was killed on October 7 and would have celebrated his 20th birthday today.

Chen said he paid condolence calls to the families of soldiers killed in Gaza, “because I know they went to look for my son, for the hostages.”

“This is the deal we have with the government: We pay taxes, we go to work and we expect the government to protect us, and that contract was broken,” says Chen. “In order to bring us back to where we were, we need to fix things.”

Chen says that the hostage families asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to come and speak at the rally, “and I still hope he will do that and come be the prime minister of us all.”

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