Simona takes out a “kidnapped” hostage poster with her daughter’s picture. Doron is a veterinary nurse, a warm and caring person, her mother says. Still almost in disbelief, Simona tells me, “They came into her home, where you are supposed to feel safe.” The horrendous sexual violence on Oct. 7 and subsequent reports from freed hostages add to her burden. “I worry about her,” Simona says, “because she is a young girl.”
Like so many other relatives of hostages, Simona experienced her own terror on Oct. 7. After 13 hours in her safe room in her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, her husband ran out to look for Doron, believing he saw her body. He ran back to Simona. “It’s not her,” he told her. Simona grimaces as she recalls the “horrible” smell of burning bodies that day. Another of Simona’s daughters, her son-in-law and their 6- and 3-year old children survived in their safe room, the terrorists unable to open the door.
Doron requires daily medicine. While a deal was struck to deliver medicine to hostages who need it, Simona has heard that instead it goes “to Hamas and …,” her voice trails off. Her agony in not knowing, stranded in perpetual helplessness, is palpable.
The Steinbrechers’ ordeal is shared with loved ones of more than 130 other hostages, some known to have been killed, others whose condition, like Doron’s, is entirely unknown. The families have forged an emotional bond, with several members traveling to U.S. cities, meeting with lawmakers and talking in public forums. Simona says she has been heartened and moved by the reactions both on Capitol Hill, where a group met Wednesday with members of Congress, and among American Jewish groups. But their excruciating emotional torture has no end in sight.
Gili Roman, a slender, tall and gentle young man, shares one aspect of the experience with many hostage families. His sister Yarden was released, but Yarden’s sister-in-law, Carmel Gat, remains held in Gaza. Carmel was taken from her parents’ home in Kibbutz Beeri on Oct. 7. Her mother was murdered just outside it. Her brother, Alon, and his wife, Yarden, and their 3-year-old daughter were taken hostage, too. At one point while they were being transported to Gaza, they saw a chance to escape; Yarden handed their child to Alon, knowing he could run faster while carrying the girl. The terrorists recaptured Yarden, but Alon and their daughter got away. After nearly eight weeks of being held hostage, Yarden was released. Carmel is still being held.
Gili says Yarden is home, doing better. Even though she is not in the United States with him, he says, “I know I can text her and she’ll respond now. I know I can call her.” Just knowing she is not there makes all the difference. Among those who have had a relative freed, “almost all the families still have someone there,” he says. Their families are torn, incomplete.
Carmel is an occupational therapist, an empathetic soul and a social activist. Two boys later released recalled that she “helped with their mental state.” Gili says, “She taught them yoga. She helped them keep a journal.” At one point they were taken away to go to the toilet; unbeknownst to Carmel, they were released instead. She probably remains unaware of their fate.
I ask Gili what he would like to see happen. “The humanitarian release — the women, the elderly, the sick — must be completed,” he says. “There is no reason to keep them. There is no reason to keep any of them, but they were supposed to be released.” Beyond that, he says that if there is a Hamas offer to release all the hostages in exchange for ending the war, the Israeli government “absolutely needs to take it.”
He repeats, “The key is the release of the hostages.” Many of the families living on the kibbutzim in southern Israel were engaged in the peace movement. Many still hope for a greater reconciliation, an end to hostilities. And to the extent that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is presenting “difficulties” to such a deal, Gili says, that would be “very severe” for Israel.
From D.C., he goes to Los Angeles, and then he hopes to speak at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. I ask if there will be ground rules. He says, “It is crazy at the top universities you cannot have an educational conversation.” Perhaps he will start one.
After all, if the pro-Palestinian groups would stop screaming and start listening, they would recognize that their greatest allies might be the families of the hostages. These relatives advocate for prompt release of their loved ones as a prelude to a greater regional peace. While members of the right-wing government may have other ideas, the hostages’ families tend not to blame Palestinians more generally. They just want the hostage ordeal to end — and the ordeal of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jews and Arabs who simply want the nightmare of endless war to end. A hostage release and a cease-fire could then clear the way, eventually, for a more comprehensive peace with the Palestinians.
If U.S. lawmakers and friends of Israel want to be effective, success may lie in making certain the Biden administration does everything in its power to prevent Netanyahu from unnecessarily prolonging the war (which has greatly reduced in intensity in recent weeks). In this, the hostages’ relatives I met, countless Israelis, many U.S. politicians and much of the American Jewish community are united: Take a deal as soon as possible — for the sake of the hostages and for the sake of a larger peace.
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