The U.S. State Department intends to host a memorial ceremony dedicated to American victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, JNS has learned.
The event will be held on Sept. 30, three days before the third anniversary of the attack on the Jewish calendar, and is being handled at the highest levels of the department, including within the office of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, multiple sources said.
The effort was largely driven by Ruby Chen, whose son Itay Chen, an Israeli-American, was killed on Oct. 7.
“The majority of the families are dealing with the rehabilitation aspect,” Ruby Chen told JNS at a recent Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas. “I have created very unique relationships with a number of the people inside of the administration, and we still have an open dialogue.”
Part of that dialogue was driving the idea of the memorial, “something that is well known to the leaders of the administration,” Chen said.
“It’s not a question of if it’s going to happen,” he told JNS. “It’s more a matter of the logistics of when and how it happens that makes the most sense.”
A spokesman for the American Jewish Committee confirmed that the organization is working with the State Department on the event and on other preparations for the families of victims who are coming to Washington, D.C., to mark the occasion.
The State Department told JNS it had nothing to announce at this time.
Ronen Neutra, whose son, Capt. Omer Neutra, an Israeli-American tank commander, was killed during the Hamas invasion, told JNS there could be meetings during the visit between the relatives of victims and government agencies, like the FBI and U.S. Treasury, about seeking justice for those killed.
At least 46 American citizens were among the approximately 1,200 people whom Hamas and other terrorists killed on Oct. 7 and subsequently killed in captivity in Gaza.
Chen is also calling for a congressional investigation into the attack, given the substantial number of American victims.
He told JNS that the post-election period in Israel “maybe would be an inflection point that would create an opportunity to advance very quickly.” The idea of an investigation has generally been received positively on Capitol Hill, he said.
