The partner and sister of the attackers in a Hamas attack on southern Israel, recalls Har, Fernando and five of his partners
The partners and sister of Har’s partner were freed along with a dog as part of a cease-fire in November. Har was happy that he would be told he was alive by his family. He and Fernando were told by their abductors that they would be freed in a few days. Then the cease-fire broke down.
More than 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 hostages were taken captive in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to the Israeli government. A cease-fire deal led to the release of half the hostages. More than 130 people remain. Many of them are still presumed to be alive.
He was originally from Argentina and lived in kibbutz near the Gaza border. He was with his partner and her brother, sister and niece on Oct. 7. As the rocket fire intensified, they turned on the TV to watch Hamas attackers enter towns nearby.
“We all gathered in the safe room and we said, a few minutes and we’ll get out,” he says. “We heard pounding at the door, breaking glass windows. Suddenly, we heard Arabic. They broke into the house … We were in total shock.”
Five men had been forced to sit on a pile of weapons after being forced into the back of a truck. They were driven away and led on foot through a tunnel for hours. They went up a ladder in Gaza.
Har says they were moved from one home to another, and eventually brought to an apartment, where they were all kept in one room. Four armed men guarded them. His partner’s niece had brought her dog.
“One of the guards fixated on her and would tell the girl all the time he wanted to marry her,” he recalls. “And we told her to turn around, to pretend she was sleeping. She was very tense and stressed and cried several times, quietly, so they wouldn’t hear. We tried to calm her. We didn’t say it out loud, but each one of us was worried.
The five captives didn’t have a radio or TV. When Israel accidentally killed three other hostages, their captives would tell them about the war. It was true, but they didn’t know whether to believe what they were told.
Argentinean Girl in a Show: The rescue of a murderer’s kidnapper. And what happened when a girl fell off
We were in a show. One of the girls lifted her leg and her shoe fell off. And it did this in the air, boom, and fell on the audience. He says that they burst out laughing. “Stories like that, usually funny things to pass the time.”
“Every time we fell into depression, we overcame it with stories. We started to say, where are we going to travel to today in our minds? So today we are in Argentina. And we’re doing this, and we’re doing that.”
“I don’t know,” Har says, when asked about Palestinians killed in the rescue raid. “It’s not my business. The military can answer you. I see that most of the people there are Hamas. They don’t intend to pet us and to love us, and I have no mercy toward them at the moment.”
“An exchange,” Har says. Our people support their murderers. The main thing is to return all the hostages to their homes regardless of whether they are murderers or not. They need to be here and be given treatment here.”
Katzir’s body and the soul of his family: Israel’s response to Gaza’s war in 2014 and Palestine’s challenge to Israel
Israel’s military said its forces recovered Katzir’s body overnight in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The remains were brought back to Israel. Israel’s military said Katzir was killed in captivity.
Katzir’s mother, Hana, was among the first hostages released during the temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in November. Carmit Palty said that her mother returned with a bad feeling and had no idea what happened to her husband or son.
She was angry that the Israeli government did not do enough to secure his freedom and that of the other Israeli hostages as quickly as possible.
She added that her brother protested weekly with the families of Israeli soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who were taken during Israel’s 2014 war in Gaza. Carmit Palty said that he would say “we can’t give up” on them.