Before he was taken captive by Hamas, Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, made a heroic move to notify his family that Hamas had infiltrated the Israel-Gaza border. His father, Jonathan, recounted the pain he felt while visiting the United States during that fateful day on Oct. 7, 2023.
“By far the worst moment of my life,” Jonathan lamented, “and being a world away at that moment, being completely hopeless and helpless to do anything.”
Sagui, a dual American and Israeli citizen, was a project coordinator for the transnational philanthropy Jewish National Fund by day. However, in his free time, he would fix up old buses and turn them into other useful purposes, such as a mobile grocery store, and his latest, a mobile technology school for children.
While working on his tech school project on Oct. 7, he spotted Hamas preparing to attack. Sagui was able to alert some of his family, who could then hide in their safe room. His mother was initially kidnapped by Hamas, but by a miracle, was able to escape on her own and join the family to safety.
Sagui is one of four children. He and his wife have three daughters. However, he’s yet to meet his newborn, who was born two months after he was taken hostage.
Jonathan has resumed teaching but said what truly gets him through the pain he feels is helping his kids and grandchildren make sense of their lives. He says he understands how complex it must be at a young age to see not only their father missing but their friends missing or murdered. He said two of their neighbors, who are children, are still hostages.
“It’s impossible to explain to a 3- or 4-year-old why his friend has been taken hostage,” Jonathan said.
Jonathan said as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces pressure to find tactics to bring the hostages home, some in Israel remain critical of his policies.
“They have little to no faith that our government, for its own narrow political reasons, does, in times ideological reasons, does not prioritize the fate of the hostages,” Jonathan explained.
Netanyahu said he’s concerned about protecting the people of Israel from becoming future hostages.
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“We are not ready to accept a situation in which the Hamas battalions come out of their holes, take control of Gaza again, [rebuild] their military infrastructure, and return to threaten the citizens of Israel in the surrounding communities,” Netanyahu said. “In this case, the next Oct. 7 is only a matter of time.”
As a new normal remains painful for the families of the hostages, they continue to press on and hold out hope for their loved ones.
