In footage published by the Israeli government, Dekel-Chen’s wife Avital, shedding tears of joy as the two embraced after 16 months apart, told him that the baby girl was named Shahar Mazal, which could translate into “lucky dawn” in English.
“That’s perfect,” the 36-year-old responded, moments after he was brought back to Israel.
The couple reunited at a military base in the south, where Sagui Dekel-Chen was brought along with two other hostages Israeli-Russian Sasha Trupanov, 29, and Israeli-Argentine Yair Horn, 46 all freed on Saturday in the sixth hostage-prisoner exchange of the Gaza ceasefire.
The three men had been seized from their homes in Nir Oz, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border, during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war.
A statement from Dekel-Chen’s family, shared by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group, said: “Our Sagui is home. A friend, son, partner, and most importantly a father, has returned.”
After nearly 500 days in captivity, “now he’s finally on Israeli soil, with us,” it added.
“In the coming hours, he will begin his rehabilitation process, he will meet his daughters Gali and Bar, and for the first time meet his little daughter, Shahar, who was born while he was in captivity.”
The statement said the family plans to keep campaigning “until the last hostage returns home”.
In return, Israel released 369 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, most of them residents of the Gaza Strip detained during the war but some of them serving life sentences for attacks against Israelis.
Israeli-Russian Sasha Trupanov, 29, was greeted by his girlfriend and mother who threw themselves into his arms at the reception point. Later, he was expected to be reunited with his grandmother.
All three women had been abducted with him but were released in during a first, week-long truce in November 2023.
According to Israeli media, it was only after his release that Trupanov learnt of his father’s death in the October 2023 attack.
Yair Horn was first reunited with his brother Amos and his mother before going to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv to see his father, who is diabetic like him and had just had a kidney transplant.
On the way, the helicopter transporting them flew over the stadium of Horn’s beloved Hapoel Beersheva Football Club in southern Israel.
He was wearing the club’s red jersey when he arrived at the hospital, an AFP photographer reported. His brother Eitan Horn remains in captivity in Gaza.
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