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11-11-2023
WASHINGTON: Officials around the globe are scrambling to find and rescue the hundreds of men, women, and children abducted by Hamas terrorists a month after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
As of now, 10 Americans are still believed to be held hostage in Gaza where thousands of civilians have been killed in Israeli bombardment, according to family member statements shared with media and recent interviews.
Two Americans mother and daughter duo Judith and Natalie Raanan have been brought home safely. Hamas released them Oct. 20, claiming to have done so for humanitarian reasons. Hamas has also released two Israeli hostages in recent weeks.
U.S. officials have not released the names of Americans still held hostage, but have said a handful are remain unaccounted for since Oct. 7.
Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, is still a hostage, his father, Jonathan Dekel-Chen told The Daily Beast in an interview on Tuesday. Sagui, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz, first helped his family into a safe room when the terrorists arrived on Oct. 7, then went out to fight them in hand-to-hand combat, The Times of Israel previously reported.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen, who has been working to share the stories of hostages from around the globe, said that the governments of Israel and the United States still have a dearth of information to share about the hostages a month after the abductions.
“We have no information about Sagui’s location or physical condition for that matter… No government agency, Israeli or American, has spoken to us about any negotiations real, imagined, future, what have you,” Dekel-Chen told 
The Daily Beast. “Our hope is that certainly the American government is doing everything it can to apply pressure on third parties to gain as much information if not the release of the hostages.”
Itay Chen, 19, a soldier in the Israeli military, is also still a hostage of Hamas, his father, Ruby Chen, told The Daily Beast Tuesday. Itay is a dual US-Israeli citizen who had been serving in a tank unit near the border with Gaza when the terrorists invaded, according to The Times of Israel.
Chen also said that families have little clarity on whether the United States and Israel are relying on Israeli military operations to try to recover hostages, or whether they are looking to negotiations.
“We are not in that dialogue as families,” Chen told media, adding that he has to have faith that the people working on it are taking the right steps to bring them home. “We have one simple thing to say, is we want our kids back.” (Int’l News Desk)
