Families of Americans Missing in Israel Issue Plea to Biden at Press Conference
Relatives of Americans who are missing after Hamas raided Israeli communities on Saturday are asking President Joe Biden for action to save their family members.
Ruby Chen, whose 19-year-old son, Itay, has been listed by the Israel Defense Force as missing, said he wants his son — who has dual American-Israeli citizenship — to be listed as a prisoner of war and treated as such by Hamas, which took at least 100 hostages into Gaza.
“I ask the U.S. not to take the backseat,” Chen said, according to The National Desk. “The U.S. has a lot of resources and is able to do many things that can be different than what the Israeli government can do.
“We are asking, on behalf of my family, President Biden to assure his heart is in the right place when it comes to Israel and the secretary of the state to do what they can to make this end, for us to become family.”
Chen was joined at a news conference in Tel Aviv by Rachel Goldberg, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, had been attending a music festival in southern Israel when Hamas attacked it, according to The Hill.
“We’ve spoken to eyewitnesses, we know that he was injured in a gun battle. I mean, they were all civilians at a music festival. They were fish in a barrel sitting in this bomb shelter,” Goldberg said, adding that she was told one of her son’s arms was blown off below the elbow and he used his shirt for a tourniquet.
My heart is breaking for Rachel Goldberg. During an interview this morning, she said according to an eye witness, her son’s arm was shot off & he had to apply a tourniquet. Not being able to help her son must be agonizing. This attack is so horrific. https://t.co/uPgP4huOAT
— Po Murray🟧 (@po_murray) October 10, 2023
“Hamas came in after the gunfire settled down and said, ‘Anyone who can walk, stand up and walk out.’ We are told that he was completely calm. I think he was probably in shock,” she said.
“And he got up and he walked out with five other young people from the music festival. Two young women, three other young men, they were put on a pickup truck and driven away by Hamas. And then the police told us one thing they knew is that the last known cell signal from his phone was on the border with Gaza,” Goldberg said.
Nahar Neta, whose mother, Adrienne Neta, 66, was taken from the ravaged community of Be’eri, said Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are “responsible to bring the U.S. citizens back home safe and sound.”
Neta, an American citizen, said family members were on the phone when terrorists invaded her mother’s house.
“My mom used a little bit of Arabic that she picked up working as a nurse in the hospital in Sorokov for 20 years to calm down the terrorist,” she said.
“And it is our hope, which is a bit ridiculous at this stage to say that the optimistic scenario here is that she’s held hostage in Gaza and not dead, on the street of the kibbutz where we grew up.”
Her sister called Adrienne Neta “an exceptional human being.”
“When she walked into a delivery room, she saw a human being in front of her. Not a religion. Not a race. Not a hijab. Not an Orthodox Jew,” Iana Neta said, according to National Review.
Four families of missing Americans in Hamas attack hold a press conference in Tel Aviv:
Nahar Neta’s mother was taken by Hamas terrorists: “President Biden and Sec. of State Blinken… are responsible to bring the U.S. citizens back home safe and sound. We expect nothing less.” pic.twitter.com/yKPS5TWEM7
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 10, 2023
Former Connecticut resident Jonathan Dekel-Chen pleaded for American leaders to “do what they can on the side of good here.”
His 35-year-old son, Sagui Dekel-Chen, is missing.
“It seems to me that the United States, my original home and still a very beloved place for me, always wants to be and must be on the side of good. Hamas is evil,” he said. “This kind of savagery, this kind of inhumanity, must be stopped.”
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