Yakov Argamani has the pale face and broken soul of a man whose child is in grave danger. He strolls through his immaculate home in southern Israel, a book of Psalms in his right hand, the front door constantly being banged open and closed by visitors, the countertops piled high with plates of freshly prepared food, more than he could ever eat.
“Noa was here, there, everywhere,” he said of his daughter Noa, who was kidnapped. “Her smell is missing, her voice. Suddenly it’s gone.”
“And I’m lost,” he said.
Hen Avigdori, a screenwriter, misses his wife and daughter. He sits with his teenage son in a quiet apartment near Tel Aviv. They have a deal: Mr. Aviggdori shares all the information he has – which isn’t much – and his son shares how he feels.
But Mr. Avigdori has problems of his own.
“I’m in this endless loop of hope and despair, hope and despair,” he said. “I need proof of life. I need to know where my wife and daughter are. It makes me crazy.”
Yakov and Liora Argamani, wearing blue shirts, were joined by family and friends of their daughter Noa, who was kidnapped by Hamas militants, for Shabbat dinner at their home in Be’er Sheva, Israel.
Ilan Regev Gerby, a door salesman with a stubbly salt and pepper beard, is haunted by the last conversation he had with his daughter Maya and recorded on his phone. She was at the rave party on October 7 where gunmen from the militant group Hamas massacred hundreds of young people and kidnapped many others. She shouted as the gunmen approached.
“Dad, they saw me, Dad, they saw me, Dad, they saw me.”
Then the line intersects.
These are the families experiencing the excruciating agony of being in the middle of the world’s most complicated hostage crisis in recent memory. Babies, grandmothers and wounded Israeli soldiers. Americans, Filipinos, French and Mexicans. Scores of people were kidnapped from that rave party and from a ring of small towns and kibbutzim that heavily armed Hamas members laid siege to for hours before Israeli security forces could respond.
On Monday, the number of publicly known hostages rose to almost 200, compared to 150 reported since the start of the conflict. An Israeli military spokesman said the military had “updated” the families of 199 hostages, but did not say what they had discussed.
Experts say Hamas has most likely trapped them in a labyrinth of underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip while the Israeli air force bombs the area and the army prepares for an invasion. It is not clear to anyone how Israel can launch a full-scale invasion of Gaza without putting the hostages at greater risk.
What frightens family members even more is the fact that the men who decide whether their loved ones live or die are the same ones who demonstrated a level of brutality that shocked the world. They slaughtered more than a thousand unarmed civilians, preyed on children, and slaughtered people with axes and knives. But the hostages may also be these men’s last means of leverage.
The family of Liri Albag, who was kidnapped by Hamas militants, takes part in a demonstration in Tel Aviv demanding the return of the hostages.
Hamas could use them as human shields. Or exchange them for prisoners in Israeli prisons or for much-needed humanitarian aid or something else. The presence of such a large number of hostages is complicating Israel’s battle plans, and on Sunday senior diplomats said an ad hoc group of officials from several countries including Egypt and Qatar, two nations that could potentially act as mediators, were holding frantic meetings about the prisoners.
Israeli officials say Hamas has not explained what it wants, how it will begin negotiations or how many people it is holding.
“I don’t know anything and I don’t think anyone in the country knows exactly what they want except the dismantling of the state of Israel,” said Ory Slonim, a veteran hostage-taker who advises the Israeli government.
Hamas threatened last week to begin executing the hostages if Israel bombed homes in Gaza, but has made no announcements about harming them since then.
For some prisoners, like Noa Argamani, there is little doubt about what happened to them on October 7th. There is no footage of her being taken away on a motorbike while desperately screaming to her boyfriend, who was being led away with his hands behind his back.
But for many others, like Mr. Avigdori’s wife and daughter, it is a mystery. They visited relatives on a kibbutz near Gaza. Many people were killed around them. Their bodies have not been found. And eight other members of the extended family have disappeared.
Mr. Avigdori said government officials were still going through the most grim categories: missing, kidnapped or dead.
Hen Avigdori and his 16-year-old son Omer in their apartment in Hod HaSharon, Israel. Mr Avigdori’s wife Sharon and his 12-year-old daughter Noam are missing, as are other members of their family.
“Yesterday two army officers came to my house,” Mr Aviggdori said on Sunday. “We sat there for an hour. They offered to help us with anything we needed, like shopping. At the end someone said, ‘Time for updates.’”
“And you know what?” Mr. Avigdori continued with a look of disbelief spreading across his face. “The officer pulled out a notebook, flipped to a blank page and said, ‘Tell me what you know.’ And I thought: Shouldn’t you tell me what you know?”
Feelings become rougher. At a recent meeting for hostage families, held in an underground parking garage as Tel Aviv continues to receive rocket fire, an Israeli government representative tried to calm an angry crowd.
“This is going to take some time,” said Gal Hirsch, a retired general who was named the official coordinator for the prisoners and missing in action. He soon ran away and told the families, “You have our phone number.”
Then shouts broke out like, “The government is blowing up its own citizens!”
Frustration over the hostages adds to criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has increased sharply this year. Every day, demonstrators gather opposite Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv, waving flags and chanting “Take them home!”
People enter a parking garage in Tel Aviv after a rocket siren sounded during a demonstration demanding the return of hostages last week.
All Mr. Argamani thinks about is his daughter coming through the door. His nightmare began last Saturday as he stood in the emergency room of a hospital in southern Israel, not far from Gaza, among a growing crowd of other fathers who had rushed there, many armed with pistols, in a desperate search for their children.
After someone showed him the video clip of 26-year-old Noa and her boyfriend being kidnapped, “I broke down,” he said.
Things have gotten worse since then.
Noa was the center of the family. She was an only child. She was in college studying electrical engineering, but still found time to care for her mother, who has cancer and can barely walk.
“Every day it gets harder to bear,” her father said. “You open the door, you don’t know why. You wash your face, but for what purpose. What? What’s next?”
“And she is a beautiful young woman,” he said. “I don’t even want to think about what they might do to her.”
Like many of his relatives held hostage – but not all – he does not want Israeli troops to enter Gaza, and not just because Noa is trapped there.
A social media page is calling for the release of Noa and her boyfriend.
“They go in and kill and kill and kill,” Mr. Argamani said. “And then what? What’s next? Just more bleeding?”
There’s always a lot going on in his house. Noa was a core, she was the one “who always had the action around her,” said Ofir Tamir, a friend.
“She had a thousand friends,” he said. “No,” Mr. Tamir corrected himself, because apparently no one knows the correct tense to describe a hostage. “She has many friends.”
Efforts to free the hostages span many governments, private organizations, offices and living rooms. For example, Noa’s friends call their contacts to find people who can help, including supervisors at McDonald’s, where Noa used to work, and Israelis doing business in China. Noa’s mother was born in China and China is considered a neutral actor that may be able to lean on Hamas.
American officials said they did not know exactly how many Americans Hamas was holding. On Friday, President Biden held a Zoom call with 14 families. “It was so personal,” said Adi Leviatan, whose sister and niece were kidnapped from a kibbutz. “Biden was so heartwarming. It felt like there was someone we could talk to.”
Mr. Regev Gerby is looking for support wherever he can get it. His daughter Maya, 21, disappeared from the rave, as did his son Itay, 18. They had gone together. They are very close. In a Hamas video, Itay is seen alive in the back of a pickup truck with his hands tied.
Mirit Regev, second from left, whose children Maya, 21, and Itay, 18, are believed to be among the dozens of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas militants, with friends and family at their apartment in Herzliya, Israel.
Mr. Regev Gerby made the rounds of Israeli television channels and shared his ordeal. Meanwhile, people come up to him on the street and hug him.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “To get support from a stranger? It gives me goosebumps.”
On Saturday evening, his neighborhood held a vigil for Maya, Itay and one of their friends, who was also kidnapped. In the soft, warm air, surrounded by elegant homes and beautiful trees and bushes, several hundred people sang songs of hope.
A black sign has been placed in the roundabout that will remain up until this nightmare ends.
It reads: “We are waiting for you at home.”
A vigil Saturday evening in Herzliya, Israel, for three young people believed to have been kidnapped by Hamas militants.
Adam Sella contributed reporting.