For some of the family members of the Israeli-Americans that Hamas is believed to have taken hostage, evenings can feel especially excruciating.
Ruby Chen, whose 19-year-old reservist son Itay, has been missing since October 7, recently spoke with CNN just before midnight in Israel. “This is the most difficult part of the day,” Chen said, because that is when he finally lets himself pause long enough to wonder: “How productive have I been in moving the release of my son an inch?”
For Iris Haggai Liniado, whose parents are believed to have been kidnapped by Hamas two months ago while they were on their morning walk, every meal can serve as a painful reminder of how little she knows about her mother and father’s whereabouts. “Today I sat and ate dinner with my sister,” Haggai Liniado told CNN one evening this week. “I’m having this huge plate of food – and my mom is not eating at all. Or maybe eating rice. Or maybe not even alive.”
Not knowing whether her parents, Judih and Gadi Weinstein-Haggai, are even still alive – and if they are, how much suffering they may be enduring – has been torture, she said. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemies. I wouldn’t wish this on Hamas who did all these things.”
Chen and Haggai Liniado are now among the families of the American hostages desperately calling on the Israeli government and the Biden White House, to do something – anything – to get their family members out of Hamas captivity.
The release of multiple Israeli-Russian hostages as part of a separate deal that Russian President Vladimir Putin struck with Hamas has left an impression on the families of the American hostages. Even as they recognize the unique circumstances that appear to have made the release of Russian nationals possible – chiefly, Putin has been accused of supporting Hamas – the families are…
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