“We don’t know if they are alive, if they are dead. It’s terrible. If they are going to come back in a plastic bag or walking,” says Hilda Miller, 72 years old. This woman is a storm of emotions a few hours before the ceasefire in Gaza begins this Sunday morning and the first of the 98 remaining hostages are released, as agreed by Israel and Hamas, some dozens of them. already lifeless. Miller is the great-aunt of Kfir Bibas, the youngest of all the captives, born just two years ago this Saturday. Kfir was kidnapped in the October 7, 2023 attack on his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, at the gates of the Gaza Strip, along with his brother Ariel, now five years old, his father Yarden, 35, and his mother, Shirin, 33. The four appear on the list of 33 kidnapped people who are scheduled to be released during the six weeks that the first of the three stages of the ceasefire will last. In any case, Miller and other relatives are committed to exercising extreme caution until they can confirm their condition and be reunited with them.
The renamed Tel Aviv Hostage Square and its surroundings have been, for the last 15 months, one of the places to measure the temperature of Israeli society in the shadow of war. Relatives of the captives, opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pacifists have been using the center of Israel’s largest city as a stage for their demands and protests. This Saturday, however, the square welcomes several thousand people amidst hope, fear and uncertainty in the face of the imminent truce in Gaza, which is located just over fifty kilometers away. This Saturday night, the Israeli authorities denounced that Hamas had not yet made public the list of the three who will be released this Sunday, something that was worrying among the hostages.
The word “everyone” is one of the most repeated and chanted in Hebrew by those present at the hostage square event, in a clear reminder to the authorities on both sides by the families that they do not want anyone stay behind They fear a process dotted with difficulties due to the prevailing tension and that everything could blow up and the entire group may not finally return. This is the case of Herut Nimrodi, mother of Tamir, one of the soldiers who was kidnapped and who has not been heard from since he appeared in one of the videos on October 7, being brought into the Strip by his kidnappers. She is not sure that her son, captured at the age of 18, was able to reach 19 and 20, but she clings to the hope that he was able to withstand this time.
“A very different Saturday”
Tamir Nimrodi is not among those 33. “I am very happy for the families on that list,” says the mother. “But very frustrated because my son doesn’t show up. It’s very hard for me, but I have to accept it,” he adds. In any case, he believes that this is the time to “maintain hope” and not criticize the Government, as he recognizes that they have done until now to make it prioritize the humanitarian route, something that Netanyahu never opted for. “This is a very different Saturday, because this time we are waiting for our hostages after 15 months of coming to this place without an agreement,” adds Herut Nimrodi.
While families celebrated the event in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, Gaza continues to be the target of the Israeli army’s attacks, which have already claimed more than 46,800 lives, most of them women and minors. From the stage, Anat Angrest, mother of Matan, one of the captives, thanks the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, who will take office this Monday, for reaching the agreement. It clearly marks the ground by ignoring any reference to the Administration of Democrat Joe Biden, who this Sunday is in charge of the country for the last day. Ofri Bibas, Yarden Bibas’ sister, has also thanked Trump for his efforts, leaving the Democrats aside. Only one of the interveners, Amit Soussana, a hostage released during the November 2023 truce, has expressed her gratitude to Biden.
In parallel, the Bibas family wanted little Kfir’s second birthday to be celebrated in their absence. They did it between photos that were taken of him with a wide smile before he fell into the hands of Hamas at only nine months old. A few weeks later, unconfirmed rumors emerged that Kfir had died along with his mother and brother inside the Strip.
They were all residents of Nir Oz, one of the main scenes of the Hamas-led attack on Israeli territory in which some 1,200 people were murdered and 250 kidnapped. Hilda Miller, the children’s great-aunt, cannot forget how the Palestinians who devastated That community and others around Gaza also murdered his sister Margit Silverman and her husband, Yossi, whose bodies were found burned in their home.
Physical and psychological damage
The forum’s medical team that brings together the family members foresees a long and complicated recovery due to the physical and mental damage, according to the experience with the hundred captives who left the Strip in November 2023, when they had been kidnapped for less than two months. . For this, a special infrastructure is deployed both in the vicinity of Gaza and in the most important hospitals in the country, the families have announced. “At first there will be a relatively small team available to receive them for the initial evaluation, so as not to overload them with new faces,” Professor Hagai Levine, head of the forum’s health team, explained in an intervention to the media. “The first stage will be resuscitation, because everyone is expected to be in a life-threatening situation. Time is of the essence: recovery will be a long and complicated process,” he added.
For Dr. Einat Yehene, a psychologist at the forum, “the process will be very demanding for families.” On the one hand, he adds, “they have endured emotional and physical instability, loss of identity and abandonment of themselves” and, now, “they will all become caregivers for the freed hostages, which is a completely new and demanding challenge.”
“We live in darkness. My life stopped on October 7, from that day on I am a different person,” insists Gilda Miller, delving into how hard it is to not know if her family members are even alive. And he regrets how hard the liberation process is going to be for the families: “They should have given the list (of the first hostages) at four o’clock this afternoon and it is eight o’clock and they haven’t given it. This is a war of nerves. “They are playing with us,” he deplores. But, at the moment, a certain spirit emerges in his words: “If there was no hope, what would we do? “I want to believe that they are still alive, although it is very difficult.”
