Their son's death was announced over a year ago. But Ruby and Hagit Chen still have not been able to sit shiva — the customary, seven-day period of Jewish mourning — for the youngest American still unaccounted for from Hamas' 2023 terror attack in Israel.
Two years after his death, Itay Chen's body has not been returned for a proper burial.
Amid widespread jubilation this week over the release of the last 20 hostages from Gaza, the families of 19 slain captives remain in anguish because Hamas has not turned over their loved ones. The failure threatens to upend the fragile ceasefire that took hold on Oct. 13.
Those still missing include two young Americans from the New York area who were serving in the Israeli military when Hamas struck: Chen, a New York City native who was 19 at the time of the terror strike; and Omer Neutra, then 21, from Plainview on Long Island.
This is just "another form of psychological warfare Hamas wishes to inflict on us," Chen's father, Ruby, said in an Oct. 16 interview from Israel.
