Israelis and Palestinians in a Gaza Border Kibbutz Nir Oz: How many hostages will we see in the coming days?
There is a chance that some of the children will be included in the first hostages released in the coming days. The publicized details of the agreement include a brief pause in fighting and the phased release of at least 50 hostages in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
“If we’ve been on a roller coaster, now we’re going up,” said Gili Roman, whose sister Yarden Roman was taken hostage from Be’eri, a Gaza border kibbutz, during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. “The fear is that the higher we go, the farther we’ll fall. There is a lot of anxiety.
According to the Israeli government and Hamas, there would be a brief cease-fire in the Gaza Strip to allow for the release of hostages.
Yifat Zailer — whose cousin Shiri Bibas was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with Ms. Bibas’s husband, Yarden Bibas, and their two red-haired children, Ariel and Kfir — said her anxious wait for news has been tinged by the hope that she might soon see her loved ones and the fear something might go awry.
She said that she is trying not to be happy too quickly. It is possible that it will collapse tomorrow. We might see the days pass, the hostages returning — and Shiri and her children not among them.”
Sheffa Phillips-Bahat, 15, a resident of the kibbutz, had two cousins who were kidnapped by Hamas — brothers Or, 16, and Yagil Yaakov, 12. Yair Yaakov was also taken hostage.
But even if Ms. Bibas, Kfir and Ariel return home as part of the emerging hostage deal — far from guaranteed — Yarden, her husband, is likely to stay behind.
Yagil appeared in a video that was released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In the video, he asked Israel to bring him home. Hostages often appear under duress and their statements are likely to have been coerced.
The Families of Ms. Phillips-Bahat, a Palestinian, in the Gaza Strip: What Happens When the Israelis Open Their Doors to Gaza?
Ms. Phillips-Bahat and her family have not heard if her cousins would come home in the exchange.
After a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery, which went terribly awry, the person who invaded her home was armed with Hamas terrorists. She was weak and easily fatigued, and a buildup of painful scar tissue on her chest caused tightness, limiting her mobility.
The militants kidnapped Ms. Engelbert, 51, and her entire family, including her husband, Ronen Engel, 54, and their daughters, 18-year-old Mika and 11-year-old Yuval, snatching them from the safe room inside their home on the Nir Oz kibbutz and taking them to the Gaza Strip, where they have been held for over 40 days.
“The last I heard from my sister was on that black sabbath at 9:30 in the morning, and she spoke very quietly, and she said, ‘They’re inside the house,’” Ms. Engelbert’s brother Diego Engelbert said in an interview.
We don’t know if anyone is taking care of her, whether she is getting pain relief and the medication she needs to keep her cancer at bay.
They range in age from infants to octogenarians, and include a Thai foreign worker who was nine months pregnant on Oct. 7 and may have given birth in captivity. There are many kibbutz members in their mid-80s who were taking medications for chronic conditions like high blood pressure, and younger adults who have both psychiatric conditions and medical conditions that can be fatal if left untreated.
More than 1200 people were killed in the raid, most of them civilians, and then there were the people who sustained life threatening injuries.
Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, who was among just four hostages released by Hamas early in the conflict, described being marched into a network of damp subterranean tunnels under Gaza that she likened to “a spider web.”
Little is known about the children’s whereabouts or well-being, and Hamas, the dominant Palestinian force in Gaza, has denied the Red Cross access to them. It is thought that some of them are being held beneath the streets of Gaza.
The 12th-Grandparent of a Kidnapped 13-year-old, Eylon Engel, is a Human, not a Number
“I am feeling like yesterday and the day before, only worse,” said Yael Engel Lichi, the aunt of Ofir Engel, a 12th-grader kidnapped on Oct. 7 from Kibbutz Be’eri while visiting his girlfriend.
Eylon said each one of them is a person and not a number. Each one of us has dreams and ambitions, and is a part of our lives.
A 12-year-old forced to make a propaganda video for his kidnappers. A young lady went to her friend’s house for a slumber party when she was snatched. A 3-year-old whose last memory of her parents was seeing them both murdered. A baby who has spent most of his life in captivity, is now 10 months old.
About 240 people were abducted by gunmen that day. Among them were individuals gravely injured in the attack or who suffered from chronic illnesses, infants and grandparents, peace activists and soldiers, citizens of Israel and foreign nationals.
The first group initially took the upper hand, persuading Mr. Netanyahu to delay a cabinet vote originally planned for Nov. 14, according to three of the officials. They hoped that more military pressure might give Israel more influence at the negotiating table, allowing more hostages to be freed.
The group who led the negotiations for Israel argued that the deal was better than none, and that the invasion could go on after a brief cease-fire was agreed to, according to four senior security officials.
The cease-fire came after the Hamas-led group took hundreds of people hostage in Israel.
The Israeli Gaza–Hostages Deal (Za’is): How a New Family is Supporting the Victims of the Supernova Attack
“So we’re very welcoming [for this deal and] everyone who comes out of this terror and this horror. It is really hard, but at the same time my sister might not be among the 50 people. I’m trying not to get the hopes up.
When Hamas fighters attacked the Supernova concert, Romi Gonen was able to call her mother. In a recording of part of their conversation, the family shared with NPR, there is gunfire and shouts which the family believes are from Hamas fighters.
“The last few minutes they are speaking of Romi, they are saying she is alive, they shouldn’t kill her, they should take her with them,” Gonen said. “Then one of them says, ‘Okay I will take her.’ And then the call ended.”
Yarden Gonen, her mother and other siblings have been coming to a square in Tel Aviv where the families of hostages gather each day to share support and information. Other Israelis are following along as well.
Gonen says the sense of community has been important to her mental health. But even with that help, she said these weeks of waiting without solid information about her sister have been exhausting and terrifying.
We have ups and downs. She says that they have a lot of support. There is a new family for me. All the [hostage] families are in the same boat I’m in, suffering from the same pain and uncertainty.”
A coalition of families whose relatives were taken hostage issued a statement on Wednesday, urging the Israeli government to move quickly to secure the release of additional hostages.
The group said they welcomed every hostage who comes back, but they want the hostages to be released immediately. “Securing the safe release of every hostage is a national priority. There is no victory until every last hostage returns home.”
Hamas and Israel reached a deal early Wednesday that will see 50 Israeli hostages freed.
A Palestinian woman and a child hostage in Gaza, but she does not want to be frightened by her husband’s military service
While Yarden Gonen worries about her sister, she is also frightened for her partner, who’s been called up to serve in Israel’s army as part of a mobilization of 300,000 reservists to support the war.
“This is the fear all the time because you don’t know what they’re planning or what they know or what they are doing or what they plan to do,” Gonen says.
A four day humanitarian pause took place between Israel and Hamas, as well as the U.S. and Egypt, for the release of 50 women and children being held hostage in Gaza. Some Palestinian women and children will be freed from an Israeli prison.
“I just keep on praying and sending really good energies,” Gonen told NPR Wednesday, after details of the deal were made public. I will be happy for everyone that is released because they are part of my family.