From the Liveblog of
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Wife of freed hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen: He only learned we’d survived Oct. 7 a day before his release
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Avital Dekel-Chen, the wife of released hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, says in a tremulous statement at Sheba Medical Center that she can hardly believe that the love of her life, the father of her children, came home to them.
“He is here, really here, standing on his legs with a huge smile and happiness in his heart,” says Dekel-Chen.
Dekel-Chen shares that Sagui, a dual US-Israeli citizen, did not know what had happened to his family on October 7 until the day before he was released.
“That’s when he found out that we were alive,” she says. “How did he succeed in surviving? Love.”
Dekel-Chen says she felt like she was still in the sealed room in her Nir Oz home for all these months, just waiting for Sagui to come rescue her.
“Yesterday, when I finally saw him, I felt we can finally leave the sealed room as a family, three girls, mom and dad, to be rehabilitated.”
Dekel-Chen talks about the fear and terror she experienced on October 7, 2023, waiting in their Kibbutz Nir Oz sealed room with her two little girls, while also in an advanced stage of pregnancy.
“I waited for him for hours to come back, to take us out,” she says. “I found myself getting on a bus alone without him, with our two little girls on this journey that was the longest of my life.”
Dekel-Chen says that some people warned her about possible endings to her story and others said the ending would ultimately be a good one.
“And I knew that no matter how many days it would be, that Sagui would come home,” says Dekel-Chen. “I said if there’s anything that can overcome this, it’s the love and connection that Sagui and I have.”
Dekel-Chen speaks of all the other fathers with young children still held hostage, and all the other hostages, whom she says must be brought home. She talks about the huge sense of pain for all the friends she lost, and all the soldiers who fell in battle.
She says that Sagui said to her yesterday that “it’s nice that everyone keeps writing” that he and the other two hostages freed Saturday were released after 498 days. But really, he told her “‘it’s more accurate to say we were there for over 43 million seconds of hell.’ They don’t count days or hours – they count seconds.”
“And Sagui asked me to say to the entire nation of Israel, ‘Thank you very much.'”
Sagui Dekel-Chen’s father, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, also speaks about the family’s home community, Kibbutz Nir Oz, which was destroyed on October 7, and still has 20 hostages being held captive in Gaza.
“We can all agree that it’s not a perfect deal,” says Dekel-Chen, a native of the US who was very active in the struggle for the hostages and his son. “But if all return home, then we will be able to try and heal everyone.”
