While her army has subjected the Gaza Strip to a shelling of unprecedented violence since the start of the war, it has been a sleepless night for her: the Israeli families of the Hamas hostages demanded “answers” from their government.
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“Families don’t sleep. They want answers. They deserve answers,” demanded Haim Rubinstein, 35, spokesman for the Forum of Families of Hostages and Missing Persons, in Tel Aviv on Saturday. In the early evening she received Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to current estimates by the Israeli authorities, around 230 hostages are being held in the Gaza Strip. Israeli authorities say more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since the October 7 attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
Their faces and their stories are omnipresent in newspapers and on social networks, feeding the deep trauma of Israeli society. They are of all ages: infants, children, adults and the elderly.
AFP
While the Israeli army shelled the Gaza Strip and fought on the ground on the night of Friday to Saturday, the families remained “in complete ignorance of the fate of the hostages, who were also subjected to violent attacks,” the families denounced in a press release that morning published.
The Israeli bombings, which began immediately after the Hamas attacks and were accompanied by a blockade of Palestinian territory, killed more than 7,700 people, half of them children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry on Saturday.
AFP
Hamas said on Thursday that around fifty hostages were among those dead, an “estimate” that the Islamist movement released before Friday night and that the AFP cannot verify.
The Israeli army said it specifically targeted the network of underground tunnels from which Hamas conducts its operations. However, according to Israeli officials, Hamas is holding at least some of the hostages in this vast labyrinth.
One of the four hostages freed by Hamas has described how, after being kidnapped, she was taken along with others into this underground “extensive network.”
“Our children, our brothers, our sisters”
On Saturday morning, several hundred people gathered in Tel Aviv and threatened to organize demonstrations. Many wore T-shirts with photos of their loved ones printed on them.
Numerous messages on a long white carpet: “We are waiting for you”, “Our hearts are with you”, “Come back in peace”, “Please free our children, our brothers, our sisters, our parents”.
Many complain about the silence of the authorities. Others say they understand. Some loudly vent their anger against the kidnappers: “You want rights? Electricity? Some water? Humanitarian aid? Eat? Free the hostages! Simple equation,” says Ilan Zechariya, 50, whose uncle is trapped.
AFP
“I’m here because I have to be their voice,” said Inbal Zach, 38, cousin of Tal Shoham, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri along with six other family members. “We don’t know anything about what happened to them. We don’t know if they were executed, if they had a doctor’s visit, if they had food,” she said.
According to the family forum, they especially want to know the answer to one question: “Does the ground operation endanger the well-being of the 229 hostages in Gaza?” Because “every minute is an eternity.”