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Aunt of former Hamas hostage: ‘We’d love a Christmas miracle’

“We’re going to keep the private conversations private,” a father of a hostage still held in Gaza said, after meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.

Hostages family friends
In Tel Aviv, relatives and friends of Israelis being held captive in the Gaza Strip by Hamas terrorists hold photos of their loved ones, Dec. 13, 2023. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90.

Several relatives of U.S. citizens being held hostage in the Gaza Strip who met with U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday subsequently spoke with reporters for a little more than five minutes.

The pool report, paraphrasing Jonathan Dekel-Chen, said it was a “terrific meeting.”

“He said the families feel they have no better friend than Biden,” according to the report, quoting Dekel-Chen.

“We’re going to keep the private conversations private,” said Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, is being held hostage in Gaza by the Hamas terrorist organization that rules the Strip.

“We’d love a Christmas miracle,” said Liz Naftali, whose niece, Abigail Edan, was released in late November during the weeklong pause in Israel’s military operation to retrieve its civilians and rid Gaza of Hamas. “We know they are working 24 hours a day.”

“If Michigan Hillel wants to remain the center of Jewish life on campus, it cannot retreat from one of the central and challenging parts of being Jewish there,” Seth Mendel, of CAMERA, told JNS.
The legislative vote would have been the first since January 2006, when Hamas defeated Abbas’s Fatah faction.
“We tried to make it clear to them that this is a memorial that was built for those who died in a horrible terrorist attack,” Lawrence Puccini told JNS.
The matter now goes to the European Council, which determines political matters for the European Union.