SARASOTA, Fla. — Gillian Kaye, a psychotherapist who lives in Sarasota, is cautiously optimistic her stepson will soon be released as part of the potential ceasefire between Israel and Gaza.
Her stepson, Sagui Dekel-Chen, a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
Kaye has worried about him almost constantly ever since.
“There isn’t any minute of any day — any second of any day — that you are not carrying with you the pain and fear of your child being a hostage, being kidnapped, being starved, being beaten,” Kaye said.
According to a senior administration official cited by CNN, Dekel-Chen and another American hostage will be released in the first phase of the ceasefire.
“We can’t wait for the day that Sagui just walks down a hall and there are his three girls and his wife, and he just puts his arms around them, and we know that we’re — we’re all a family again,” Kaye said.
However, Kaye said she is still hesitant.
“I feel like we all have been here before multiple times, in fact, with a deal that then collapsed,” she said.
However, she said this potential ceasefire does feel more certain, and if it does succeed, she credits teamwork between both the Biden Administration and the incoming Trump Administration.
“It has been an incredible model, I think, of cooperation in this time when things are so tense and so pulled apart,” she said.
She describes her stepson as a charming man with a magnetic personality, a loving husband, and a father of three.
According to Kaye, the last indication her stepson was alive was when a previously released hostage reported that Dekel-Chen was being held in a tunnel underneath Khan Younis.
According to Kaye, Dekel-Chen’s wife and children sheltered in their home’s safe room and somehow survived the brutal attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel.
After Dekel-Chen’s capture, his wife gave birth to the couple’s third daughter, who recently turned one.
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