From the Liveblog of
Thursday, August 1, 2024
Father of soldier killed, seized by Hamas on Oct. 7 urges hostage deal: ‘We want a place to grieve’
Onstage at a large rally in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, Ruby Chen, the father of American-Israeli soldier Itay Chen who was killed and abducted by Hamas on October 7, urges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to return the hostages and bring his son’s body back to Israel to be buried.
“We want a place to grieve, we want a place to close the circle and be able to continue the next chapter of our sad lives,” he says.
He recalls that last week, he and his wife, Hagit, met Netanyahu in the United States alongside US President Joe Biden. During the meeting, Chen told Netanyahu of a conversation that he had with Biden about his slain son.
“The same day that we received the terrible news, President Biden called us… I told President Biden that we chose not to sit shiva because Itay wasn’t there with us. He says that he told the president that “we won’t sit shiva so long as he does not return, and the government of Israel doesn’t return him.”
“I reminded President Biden of that sentence, and then Biden asked Prime Minister Netanyahu: ‘Bibi, when will we sit shiva?'” Chen tells the crowd. “The response we got was not a good one.”
He invokes Netanyahu’s brother, Yoni Netanyahu, who was killed during the famous 1976 Entebbe hostage rescue operation.
“Remember your parents Benzion and Zila, may their memories be a blessing — they had a state funeral, a shiva, they had a grave to return to each year,” he recalls telling the prime minister. “I asked the prime minister where will we be on the next Yom HaZikaron, and the response I got then was also not good.”
“I very much hope that the prime minister, next time we see him, will succeed in giving me a better response and say: ‘I returned all the hostages… and the soldiers to burial because that is what this nation deserves.”
The Times of Israel Community.