When you talk about a ceasefire without mentioning the hostages and wonder why Israel isn’t prepared to even consider this option, you need to understand that for us, these hostages are people we actually know, not some vague, faceless entity that we are using as an excuse for our actions. They are members of our families… Our friends… People in our extended circles… With six-and-a-half weeks having passed since that terrible, dark Saturday, every Israeli knows the hostages. We would recognize them on the street and call them by name. We know their ages and their families. We know who they lost that day and how it happened.
We cannot get them out of our minds, no matter how hard we try. And they haunt us. I can’t stop thinking about them – especially now, when it seems like we are so close to seeing some of them released in the coming days. I worry about them all, but mostly about the children – some of whom, are there alone after watching their parents and siblings tortured and murdered right in front of their eyes. Can you imagine?
I wonder if those children who were abducted with their parents or other family members were allowed to stay together in captivity, hoping that the proven barbaric depravity of their terrorist captors doesn’t extend to keeping them apart in order to inflict even more damage and pain. I find myself praying that the kids who were abducted alone are with others they know from their communities, especially adults who can provide them with care and love, holding them close when they cry, comforting them in their native language and keeping them as safe as possible in whichever hellhole they are being kept.
I think about how much we want to bring these members of our extended family home and how grateful and relieved we will feel with each release and return (though with heavy hearts over the price we will have to pay to get our loved ones home). But I also think about how their relief will be mingled with so many feelings, and how overwhelmed they will undoubtedly be – from their ordeal as well as from discovering what has happened since they were taken. But most of all, I try to imagine what their lives will be like, and how they will never be the same – how this trauma will haunt and shape them for the rest of their lives, no matter how young or old they were when they were abducted. To quote a friend, it shreds my insides.
As our country cautiously prepares to start bringing our hostages home, as we try not to get our hopes too high, as we try to stave off the inevitable concerns surrounding what we have to give in return, and as we face the anguishing, bittersweet reality that, at least for now, many will remain behind, I ask that you take a few moments to meet some of the children who are being held captive by reading the article below. Hopefully, it will help you to understand why Israelis aren’t even able to imagine a ceasefire without being able to bring them home.
