Which bed did he sleep on last night? Are you aware of his diet? Are you aware if he was wearing a blanket?” In an interview with News , Ruby Chen, the father of Itay Chen, who was abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023, posed these questions.
“All those types of questions are questions that we ask ourselves constantly,” he stated. “The feeling is that we’ve been failed.”
Itay, who was 19 years old when he was kidnapped, has been kept captive in Gaza for 365 days. Terrorists from Hamas carried out a series of well-planned attacks on his unit in southern Israel after breaching the border.
;Chen, a New York City native, said he and his wife had been granted “unprecedented” access to the White House, the CIA and other senior agencies for the last year to discuss ongoing strategies to try and get the captives out of Gaza.
The Chens have not only met with national security advisor Jake Sullivan a dozen times, as well as CIA Director William Burns and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, they also have a weekly conversation with the White House.
However, in the end, these attempts at assistance have failed to meet the actual needs of American families whose loved ones are still being held captive by Hamas.
