After 500 days, a father reunites together with his son who was taken hostage by Hamas

Sagui Dekel-Chen, a twin U.S. and Israeli citizen, is likely one of the three Israeli hostages Hamas launched over the weekend after almost 500 days of captivity.

As a part of the fragile ceasefire deal that went into impact final month, Israel additionally launched 369 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. It was the sixth hostage-for-prisoner alternate between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.

Sagui Dekel-Chen was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023 from Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel near the Gaza border. Through the 15-month struggle, his household persistently advocated for a ceasefire deal. His father, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, a professor at Hebrew College in Jerusalem, has repeatedly and publicly pushed for Hamas to launch all its hostages. He has additionally criticized the Israeli authorities’s dealing with of the struggle.

Final month, Jonathan Dekel-Chen joined Morning Version and described his son’s absence as “hellish” for him and his household, particularly Sagui’s three younger daughters, one among which he had not met as a result of she was born two months after he was kidnapped.

After Sagui Dekel-Chen’s launch, Jonathan Dekel-Chen spoke to NPR’s Leila Fadel once more. He described the emotional reunion together with his son and mentioned Sagui’s bodily and emotional state and well-being.

The next excerpt has been edited for readability and size. 

Leila Fadel: What was that first second like, the second you noticed Sagui once more for the primary time in almost 500 days?

Jonathan Dekel-Chen: Nicely, it was a sense that I used to be a witness to a miracle, fairly truthfully. That was the feeling, earlier than I used to be actually shut sufficient to him to actually take all of it in. And as soon as I used to be, I knew that it was my son, that Sagui himself had come residence. Sagui, he speaks together with his eyes. And as soon as I noticed his eyes, I knew that one way or the other, one way or the other he had survived 500 days in hell. And he, my son, was again with us.

Fadel: How is he bodily and emotionally?

Dekel-Chen: We knew prematurely from the forensic proof of their residence that he had been wounded through the bloodbath, Hamas’s bloodbath on Kibbutz Nir Oz on October seventh. These wounds now will want in depth therapy with a purpose to rehabilitate him. And as you may think, 500 days of abuse, malnutrition, lack of healthcare and sanitation in a tunnel with out seeing the sunshine of day for all of that point has solid a heavy toll on Sagui’s physique. However it’s all fixable, and that is what’s most necessary.

He is in remarkably good spirits below the circumstances. We’ve got little question that there will probably be some ups and downs over the subsequent days, weeks, months, as a result of, after all, 500 days shouldn’t be figuring out in any given second whether or not you are going to stay or die by the hands of murderous terrorists, after all, has an impact on anybody.

Fadel: The final time we spoke, you informed us one among Sagui’s youngsters was born whereas he was a hostage in Gaza, that he had by no means met his youngster. What was it like for him to lastly meet that youngster and be reunited together with his different youngsters?

Dekel-Chen: I feel there’s one thing we have to know even earlier than answering that query. It seems that Sagui and nearly all the hostages held underground within the tunnels knew nothing of the surface world. So, from October seventh, 2023, Sagui had no thought if his spouse and kids, or any of us, had survived the bloodbath. He solely realized two days earlier than his launch that his spouse had survived and that not less than his two little ladies had additionally survived. Till he crossed the border into Israel, he was not likely conscious of the truth that any of them have been alive or that his daughter had been born.

He was past pleasure. I do not assume there are phrases in Hebrew or in English, or every other language, to actually describe the feelings and emotions at this reunion, [in which Sagui is] actually getting back from the valley of dying, or the tunnels of dying extra precisely on this case. He has met all of his ladies, or reunited together with his two older daughters and met for the primary time, Shahar, who’s now a yr and two months previous. She was born about two months after the bloodbath.

It is spectacular. It offers one religion, I suppose, that there are higher forces on the earth at work, however there’s way more to be executed. There’s nonetheless 73 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in those self same hellish tunnels. So we have now way more work to do to carry everybody residence.

Olivia Hampton edited the digital and audio variations of this piece.