U.S. President Joe Biden spoke on Friday, with the families of 14 families who hold American citizenship, and who's relatives are confirmed or believed held in Gaza, after they were abducted by the invading Hamas terrorists on Saturday. The president spent one and a half hours on the call hearing the families patiently and telling them he would do everything in his power to bring them and all the others back home safely.
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Ruby Chen, the father of Itai, told Channel 12 News in an interview, that the President came onto a call arranged with an official in the State Department and was supposed to speak to the families for 15 minutes but when the time was up and the official thanked Biden for his participation, the president scolded him and told him he - as president of the united states, would decide when his time on the call was up, and continued to ear each and every family. In contrast, Chen said, no high-level official and certainly not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had spoken to him or other families.
On Friday, soon after that call with Biden, the Prime Minister's office announced the establishment of a committee to maintain contact with the families of those taken to Gaza.
The ad body set up by the families to coordinate the effort to secure the hostages' return, asked for urgent information on their illnesses and medications so that the information would be delivered to the Red Cross or any other humanitarian intervention on their behalf.
The IDF said today that they could confirm to 120 families thus far, that their loved ones were abducted to Gaza.
Earlier in the week, Netanyahu appointed Bir. Gen. (reserves) Gal Hirsch as the government's point man dealing with the abducted and missing Israelis. Hirsch told angry family members demanding information, that he would speak to each one of them. "I came to tell you we are working around the clock to obtain all the information." He said there are growing diplomatic efforts underway.