Father of Israeli-American hostage pleads for deal 'with Satan' before Biden, Harris enter Situation Room
The father of an Israeli-American still held by Hamas urges a hostage deal with 'savage terrorist organization'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The father of an Israeli-American hostage still being held by Hamas demanded a "negotiated agreement with Satan" soon, as President Biden and Vice President Harris head into the Situation Room with the U.S. negotiating team.
"It is absolutely clear, the only way to get hostages home alive is by some kind of negotiated agreement with Satan," Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui is still being held in Gaza following Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, said in an interview with "Fox & Friends" Monday morning. "Keeping in mind that all of Israel’s military and intelligence, senior command have been saying for weeks if not months the fighting needs to stop in order to get the hostages back, as many as possible alive, but all of the 101 hostages remaining."
There are seven U.S. citizens still being held by Hamas as hostages, including four believed to be still alive, and three whose murders have already been confirmed, Dekel-Chen noted.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"As far as messaging to the Israeli government, my government, it’s that the time is over for selling, perpetuating this fantasy of total victory over Hamas based on the sacrifice of our sons, daughters, grandparents who are hostages in Gaza," Dekel-Chen said. "We’ve been at this for 11 months, hearing from our government that a little more military pressure and a little more military pressure is going to cause Hamas to come begging for an agreement in exchange for our hostages. Clearly, that has not happened. Six bodies were returned yesterday of hostages who were alive until this past week. A week before that, six other hostages were returned after their murder, months and months after [Oct. 7]."
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Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of Sagui Dekel-Chen, one of the hostages taken by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, speaks in front of the West Wing of the White House on April 9, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Biden and Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, plan to meet in the White House Situation Room Monday morning along with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team after the murder of six hostages, including American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, by Hamas on Saturday.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The White House said the focus of the meeting is to discuss efforts to drive toward a deal that secures the release of the remaining hostages.
Mobs of protesters took to the streets in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities on Sunday, after the bodies of the hostages in Gaza were returned to Israel, fueling frustration and anger toward the country’s leadership for failing to achieve a cease-fire deal freeing the remaining hostages. Israeli media reported that the crowds of protesters were estimated to be up to 500,000 in major Israeli cities.
A rare call for a general strike in Israel to protest the failure to return hostages held in Gaza led to closures and other disruptions around the country on Monday, including at its main international airport.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A day after the discovery of the bodies of six hostages in the Gaza Strip, a major strike led by Israel's trade union umbrella organization Histadrut began on Sept. 2, 2024, in protest against the government's failure to end the conflict. (Ilia yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
"I think the Biden administration itself will say that they will have done enough when all of the hostages are home. The seven Americans, of course, but all of the 101. The Biden administration has given us extraordinary support since Oct. 7, as well as Congress, from wall to wall which is quite extraordinary in these very polarized political times," Dekel-Chen said.
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"At the end of the day, the Biden administration or any US administration is not the one who has to sign this agreement. The United States together with Qatar and Egypt are trying to broker an agreement between Israel and a savage terrorist organization," the father added. "To date, I believe that the Biden administration, all of the U.S. families would agree, has done everything in its power to bring those two sides to yes. Clearly, a little more is necessary, and that’s what we’re asking for, that last little push to convince, obviously Hamas and the Israeli government to get to yes, to end this madness, and to get our people home. Americans, the U.S. citizens and everyone else."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Dekel-Chen said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition don't have any excuse not to complete a deal. Hamas, though, has rejected recent proposals.
Passengers wait for flights at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv during a nationwide strike on Sept. 2, 2024 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Ameer Abed Rabbo/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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Dekel-Chen argued that the complete eradication of Hamas should not be a sticking point for a deal, because they are too weak to control the Gaza Strip anymore.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The entire senior command of the Army and our intelligence services have said very clearly that Hamas at this moment has been so significantly depleted as a military and a governing organization that that simply cannot be used anymore, except for evidently, domestic political purposes by our prime minister and his coalition, that cannot be used as a reason, really an excuse, anymore to not complete this deal," Dekel-Chen said. "The only resistance in Israel is from the government itself, most of its ministers unqualified really to make these kinds of decisions from military and intelligence standpoint."
Fox News' Greg Wehner and the Associated Press contributed to this report.