Hostage Father Dr. Jonathan Dekel-Chen on Today’s Events

Hostage Father Dr. Jonathan Dekel-Chen on Today’s Events

I am sharing this heartfelt and honest commentary, as its author — Dr. Jonathan Dekel-Chen

— is someone whose integrity, compassion and commentary I have come to greatly respect. 

Last year, reading Dekel-Chen’s painfully frank chronicle of his family’s personal experience of October 7, I reached out to him for advice vis-a-vis a US / Israeli client of ours. His generous response continues to touch me. Throughout today’s seminal events in Israel and Gaza, and listening live to Donald Trump’s speech at the Knesset, my mind went back to my interaction with Dr. Dekel-Chen. It does not surprise me that his commentary offered below is both profound and timely.

— David Eugene Perry

My Son Was a Hostage in Gaza. Israelis Are Grateful to Trump – But Unsure About Peace.

Deep wounds and distrust on both sides will make for a long and difficult path to two states and lasting peace.

By Jonathan Dekel-Chen, Contributor 

13 October 2025

As I write these lines this morning, 20 living hostages have emerged from the valley of death and are reuniting with their families two years after they were abducted during a Hamas attack on southern Israel. So much has been lost since Oct. 7, 2023, both for Israelis and for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. There was jubilation across Israel today, notably in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, the plaza occupied by loved ones that became the gathering place for protests and vigils calling for the hostages’ release. But the reality for most Israeli families is more complex. As the father of a former hostage released last February, I understand both the joy and the worries.

For the families of the remaining 28 hostages who are understood to be deceased – and for the whole country – fear and apprehension abound, with more questions than certainties whirling around us. What condition are the living hostages in? How many bodies of murdered hostages will Hamas return to Israel in the coming days – or at all? Will all of this really lead to the end of the war? Perhaps not, given the statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his Likud party about restarting the war once all of the hostages are home. Further down the road, what will U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan mean for the future of Israel’s security and the future for millions of Gazans? If Israel or Hamas violate the agreements outlined in Trump’s wider plan, this hostage-prisoner exchange may turn out to be just another lonely moment in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

We Israelis are certain about some things. First, our society is in crisis as a result of this war, which has fomented widespread disdain and distrust for Netanyahu’s government. The prime minister has steadfastly refused to take accountability for the Israeli intelligence and policy failures that led to the catastrophe of Oct. 7. The cynical behavior of his government since the massacre – including his offensive statements suggesting hostages’ families were hurting the war effort and his continued efforts to undermine the judiciary and erode our checks and balances – disgusts most Israelis.

No one could miss the public gratitude in recent days from the Israeli public to Trump and his team. On Oct. 8, 2023, I knew that only forceful, sustained pressure from the Oval Office on the Israeli government and Hamas leadership would bring hostages home alive, if at all. Why? Because Israeli and Hamas leaders had intrinsic reasons to continue fighting.

Tragically, for the hostages and for civilians in Gaza, my early fears were borne out. The Israeli public felt trapped by the cynical actions of the Netanyahu government until Trump changed the equation by creating a situation in which Israel’s prime minister could not say “no” to the president’s plan to end the war. Seen in this light, the outpouring of public gratitude to Trump makes sense. Netanyahu has ignored our demands to end the war, which were loudly expressed in every public opinion poll and countless mass demonstrations across the country.

Millions of Israelis recognize that the Netanyahu government has not acted in the hostages’ best interests or indeed in the nation’s best interests. Only blunt American intervention forced Netanyahu to abide by what our own citizens have overwhelmingly demanded for two years.

We know that Netanyahu torpedoed previous rounds of negotiation in order to keep his government intact. But we do not know if he or Hamas leaders intend to abide by the rest of Trump’s plan. Fulfilling the U.S. president’s vision of a post-Hamas Gaza will require the United States, the mediators, Persian Gulf states and other concerned countries to keep maximum pressure on both the Israeli government and Hamas leadership. Otherwise, either player may very well resume the cycle of war.

What will happen following the ceasefire? Trump’s plan outlines a multinational effort to rebuild Gaza and it offers a promise for Palestinian statehood. For decades before Oct. 7, liberal Israelis – along with much of the world – backed a two-state solution, but this support has eroded in Israel over the last two years, with half of Israelis saying it’s not possible.

Before the Oct. 7 atrocities, I was active in the Israeli peace movement that promoted that model of coexistence from my kibbutz home on the border of Gaza. But as a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz and the parent of a hostage who was held for nearly 500 days in terrible conditions, Oct. 7 forced me to reassess my position. I believed until then that Palestinians deserved a state of their own alongside Israel. The destruction of Nir Oz by armed terrorists and civilian looters from Gaza, who were fed hate and propaganda, has now sadly given me pause about the future of coexistencebetween Israelis and Palestinians.

What’s to be done now? The first order of business – aside from feeding the people of Gaza and rebuilding the destruction – must be a focus on de-escalating hatred on both sides of the border. We must break this spiraling hatred that has worsened in the last two years.

Israelis must reckon with the destruction in Gaza. And the Palestinian people must understand the depth of the wounds of Oct. 7. Until we find a way to defuse those old hatreds, I cannot see a pathway towards a two-state solution. Perhaps finally forging that path from the ground-up, outside the realm of conventional politics, could be what emerges from these horrific last two years of war.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen is a professor of Jewish history and the Rabbi Edward Sandrow Chair in Soviet & Eastern European Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz, and his son Sagui Dekel-Chen spent nearly 500 days as a hostage in Gaza after Oct. 7, 2023.