It is October 323. For the families of the hostages held by Hamas, it feels as if the month that brought them absolute horror will never end. “We will only continue counting the months once our relatives are freed,” they say.
On Saturday evening, thousands of people again took to the streets of Israel, in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beer Sheva, Haifa and elsewhere, demanding a deal to bring home the 109 abducted people still held in Gaza.
The rally took place under a huge banner in the Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. It read in bold letters: “You could have saved them.” The evening marked the end of the week in which the bodies of hostages were recovered from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. The dead were Abraham Munder, Alex Dancyg, Chaim Peri, Yagev Buchshtab, Yoram Metzger and Nadav Popplewell. The men were kidnapped alive from their home kibbutzim and then murdered by Hamas. All of the dead had gunshot wounds, according to autopsies.
On Sunday, negotiating teams from Israel and reportedly also from Hamas plan to fly to Cairo to continue negotiations on a ceasefire and the release of the hostages. Several relatives of the hostages condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his insistence on an Israeli presence at the Philadelphia Passage along the border between Gaza and Egypt.
Released hostages met with Prime Minister Netanyahu
“The Philadelphia Passage is cruel propaganda by Netanyahu aimed at torpedoing an agreement and fueling his smear campaign against the leaders of the security establishment,” said Yehuda Cohen, the father of hostage Nimrod Cohen.
The nephew of the murdered Abraham Munder, Eyal Mor, said he probably died in March. “This means that my uncle and his older friends spent over five months in a tunnel in inhumane conditions, managing to survive without clean air, daylight, medicine, sanitation, contact with the outside world and with little food and water.”
“When we looked into each other’s eyes and you couldn’t say anything, I was left with your sad eyes that accompany me everywhere, at every moment.”
The same government that failed to protect them in their homes near the Gaza Strip repeatedly neglected them and missed every opportunity to bring them back under an agreement. “We know for sure that there were such opportunities,” said Mor. “We will never know what was going on in the minds of Chaim, Alex, Yoram, Nadav, Yagev and Abraham during those months of physical and mental torture, but I believe any suggestion that includes the words ‘neglect’ or ‘betrayal’ is accurate.”
Many of the relatives are desperate and worn out after months of fighting for the lives of their loved ones. Aviva Siegel addressed her imprisoned husband Keith: “You are missed so much here and I keep asking myself: ‘How are you? Where are you? How is it possible that so much time has passed since that terrible moment when they separated us?’ When we looked into each other’s eyes and you couldn’t say anything, I was left with your sad eyes that accompany me everywhere, at every moment.”
Protesters want to see action
She ended her emotional appeal with a speech to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom she had met the day before along with other captivity survivors. “You looked me in the eyes and promised to bring Keith home. But I no longer believe in words – I want to see actions. Keith cannot hold on much longer and we both know it. Bring him home today! Bring back hope! Bring back the ability to breathe and live in the country we love so much.”
Gil Dickmann, cousin of hostage Carmel Gat, made it clear that although so many people have been killed and captured by Hamas terrorists, the values of mutual responsibility, solidarity, equality, democracy and life cannot be killed.
Every soldier fighting in Gaza wants [Hamasanführer Yahya] Dickmann believes they will find Sinwar. “But they want to find the hostages alive a thousand times more,” he is convinced. “Because that is what Israel is all about. We believe in life. And we Israelis fight for life.”
