The Return: A Son Comes Home from a War That Never Should Have Been
They brought him back in the quiet hours between dusk and dawn, when the world’s distant roar softens and the weight of grief becomes almost audible. For the Chen family, a new kind of silence descended — one that carried the contours of a life lost and the relief of finally having something to bury.
On a cool evening, Israeli authorities confirmed what the family had been bracing for: the remains handed over the day before by Hamas belonged to Staff Sergeant Itay Chen, a dual Israeli-American soldier seized during the October 7, 2023 attacks that ignited the Gaza war. The 19‑year‑old was a combat soldier in the 77th Battalion of the 7th Brigade, posted at the border when militants attacked. He was one of dozens of hostages whose fates have haunted both sides for years.
A Family’s Long Vigil
“We feel the support of the entire nation, the people are behind us and want to see all the hostages returned,” said Ruby Chen, Itay’s father, in the days before the handover. “I hope the prime minister and the chief of staff understand this too — seize the opportunity to finish this mission.”
His mother, Hagit, captured the same unbearable mix of pain and purpose: “I will not be able to take a single step forward in my life without Itay’s return,” she had told reporters. “Even when we break down, which happens every day, I remind myself that we have not finished our mission.”
These words are raw and ordinary — the language of parents who have lived with the impossible for more than two years. Their son’s last sign of life came on the day the attack began, a final contact that became a talisman for them. The Israeli military announced in March 2024 that Itay had died in combat and that his body had been taken into Gaza; the formal identification this week transformed a painful possibility into a confirmed loss.
Numbers That Tell a Story
Behind the headline — one more young life returned — is a tableau of slow, bureaucratic and bloody arithmetic. Since a ceasefire came into effect on 10 October (as reported during the truce negotiations), Hamas has handed over the remains of 21 deceased hostages to Israel.
- Starting point: 48 hostages in Gaza at the ceasefire’s outset — 20 were alive and 28 were believed deceased.
- Survivors: Over the course of the truce, all surviving captives were released.
- Deceased returned: 21 bodies repatriated — 19 Israelis, one Thai national and one Nepali.
These are more than statistics. Each number brackets a family, a neighborhood, a set of rites and remembrances now disrupted by war. They also expose the slow machinery of diplomatic exchanges, where bodies and bargaining chips get entangled with politics and pain.
Where the Remains Came From
Hamas’s armed wing said Itay’s remains were recovered in Shujaiya, a battered neighborhood east of Gaza City, during excavation and search operations inside the so-called “yellow line” — the boundary marking Israeli military positions within Gaza. The group has repeatedly explained that many of the deceased are difficult to recover because bodies lie beneath rubble from intense urban fighting.
“We are working to complete the entire exchange process as soon as possible,” a Hamas spokesman said, stressing the logistical hurdles and the need for equipment and personnel to carry out recovery operations. The group has appealed to mediators and humanitarian organizations — including the Red Cross — for assistance.
On the Ground: Voices from Both Sides
In Khan Younis, where Nasser Hospital has been receiving casualties for months, hospital staff say they have been handling the exchange’s logistical realities alongside a steady stream of patients and the daily dangers of shortages. “We receive bodies, we receive wounded, and we try to provide dignity for everyone,” a medic at Nasser Hospital told a visiting journalist on condition of anonymity. “There are no winners in this for us, only the obligation to treat the living and honor the dead.”
In Israel, the identification process was carried out by the Israel Defense Forces and civil authorities before informing the Chen family. “Following the completion of the identification process, IDF representatives informed the family of the fallen hostage that their loved one has been returned to Israel and positively identified,” said an official bulletin from the prime minister’s office.
Across small towns and the big cities, neighbors and synagogue congregations have gathered to offer condolences, a mosaic of communal rituals — prayers, candle lighting, visits known in Hebrew as “shivah” — that will now be reshaped around Itay’s return. “We always said we would do everything for the families,” said one community member. “But that doesn’t stop your heart from breaking when a child does not come home.”
What This Exchange Reveals
Beyond the immediate tragedy, the repatriation raises broader questions about how modern conflicts handle human remains, hostage diplomacy and the slow, bureaucratic art of closure. In the age of drones, satellite imagery, and relentless news cycles, the most intimate act — a family burying a child — remains stubbornly analog and painfully personal.
Consider the practical obstacles: rubble-filled neighborhoods, ongoing military operations, the negotiation of safe corridors, and the imperative for forensic verification before returns can occur. These are the grim building blocks of so many modern wars, where recovery and reconciliation stretch out long after ceasefires are declared.
And there are political dimensions too. Israel has accused Hamas of delaying returns; Hamas points to operational difficulty and requests for assistance. Mediation by third parties — some diplomatic, some humanitarian — has been essential. In this case, the deal was brokered by the United States, according to official accounts, highlighting the continuing international role in a conflict that touches far beyond a single border.
Questions That Stay with Us
What price is paid by families who live for years without certainty? How does a society reconcile the need for security with the rituals of mourning that require time and tenderness? And in a world where conflicts are increasingly urban and protracted, how can international institutions better support the retrieval of the dead — and the return of the living?
These are questions that outlast any single exchange. For the Chen family, the practicalities now turn to mourning and burial rites — to a fistful of moments where the public recedes and grief becomes private once more.
“We miss him; the pain is unbearable,” Hagit Chen said simply. Those words, unadorned and true, are a reminder that beneath the headlines are families tasked with giving names back to bodies and stories back to lives.
After the Burial
When the funeral concludes, when the last guest has left the house and the shivah candles burn low, the larger tableau of this war will still be there — the negotiations, the rubble, the families waiting for closure. But for a moment, a family will have one point of certainty in a world of ambiguity: a son who came home at last.
And as you read this, elsewhere in Gaza, in an overburdened hospital, or around another kitchen table broken by loss, similar stories unfold. How do we, as a global community, carry them — not only in headlines but in policy, in aid, and in the quiet work of restoring dignity to the dead and care to the living?
