Hostage’s father casts doubt on PM’s public acceptance of US ceasefire proposal

CHICAGO — The father of slain American-Israeli hostage Itay Chen casts doubt on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public acceptance of the US bridging proposal submitted last week to secure a ceasefire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas.

“It’s difficult to understand why the prime minister is coming up with new topics and further clarifications on things that he himself put in place,” Ruby Chen says in an interview with The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

He acknowledges that Netanyahu’s office issued a statement on Monday announcing his support for the US proposal, but Chen notes that Netanyahu immediately met with a small minority of hostage families who have opposed previous hostage deal offers and “backtracked a bit on what was agreed upon in the prime minister’s meeting with [US] Secretary [of State] Antony Blinken.״

According to an Israeli official, Netanyahu told the hawkish hostage families in yesterday’s meeting that Israel will not under any circumstances leave the Philadelphi and Netzarim Corridors, doubling down on the new demands he issued last month that Israeli negotiators have warned could scuttle a deal.

Chen accuses Netanyahu of “posturing,” saying the prime minister conducted himself similarly during and after his meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House last month. The hostage’s father said Netanyahu “made clarifications after the meeting that weren’t in line with what we understood at the White House.״

For now, the Biden administration has maintained that Netanyahu is, in fact, sticking with the latest bridging proposal submitted by the US on Friday, but a US official does acknowledge to The Times of Israel that there’s concern from both sides regarding the implementation of the deal.

Highlighting the recovery of six hostages’ bodies hours earlier, Chen says the development highlights the urgency of his plight.

“The enemy of a good deal is an excellent deal. The prime minister is looking for an excellent deal, but to get there he’s taking such a long time that more hostages are being sacrificed,” he says.

Pressing Netanyahu to act, he cites a Jewish teaching that states that one who saves a life is as if to have saved an entire world.

He clarifies that Hamas also needs to accept the US proposal on the table — something the terror group has yet to do.