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Gilad’s son, daughterinlaw and grandchildren were taken hostage
Item information
- Author: Lucy Williamson
- Scrolling, from BBC News in Israel
9 hours ago
Kibbutz Be’eri is 5 km from Gaza but has never appeared to be the front line of any conflict. Well, it seems so. The empty streets are a picture of hate.
In the house where seven members of the Gilad Korngold family were taken hostage by Hamas, it is difficult to find traces of family life.
There are holes in the walls caused by machine guns, metal doors deformed by bullets, collapsed ceilings and rooms destroyed by fire.
“Look at this!” Gilad says, holding back tears as he enters the house. “See how much they hate us.”
The bunker door withstood the bullets, but the steel windows were smashed and his family disappeared. Among the hostages are his son Tal, his daughterinlaw Adi, his eightyearold grandson Naveh and his threeyearold granddaughter Yahel.
It is the first time since the attack that he sees the house that belongs to Adi’s parents.
“Reconstruction will take several generations [o kibutz]“when it is rebuilt,” he says. “I don’t think many people will come back.”
Not only were the homes destroyed, but so was the Israeli government’s promise to the population to bring them to safety, even 5 km from a Palestinian territory run by a group bent on Israel’s destruction.
“It was an illusion,” Gilad said. “It’s been a long illusion for 25 years. We thought we were safe here, we were strong. But after that, I hope they wake up and adopt a different strategy.”
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The family home was completely destroyed
Given this scenario, the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is obvious.
Both Netanyahu and his armed forces face the difficult task of restoring confidence in Israel’s ability to protect its people.
At the same time, public pressure is mounting on the government to guarantee the return of more than 200 hostages held in Gaza, including Gilad’s son, daughterinlaw and two grandchildren.
While negotiations were reportedly still ongoing, Hamas proposed releasing the hostages in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
Many of the hostages’ family members, including Gilad, say Israel should do whatever it takes.
But the man Israel blames for that attack Gaza’s Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was himself released 12 years ago as part of a prisoner exchange deal.
Netanyahu has already held talks with the families of some hostages about Israel’s intensive bombing of the Gaza Strip and stressed that there is no conflict between the government’s two priorities of destroying Hamas and protecting the hostages.
“The key is the level of pressure,” he told families last week. “The greater the pressure, the greater the opportunities.”
But many families need to be convinced.
Gilad said he and his family stayed up all night last week as Israel stepped up its airstrikes on Gaza, waiting for news about the hostages there. It was “a terrible night,” he says.
And public opinion appears to be tilting in favor of the situation of the hostages’ families. After a broad media campaign, more and more people are taking part in the demonstrations they have organized.
And a poll conducted by a major Israeli newspaper shortly before the ground invasion of Gaza found that less than a third of people supported the invasion, up from more than twothirds a week earlier.
During this time, Hamas released four hostages, two each. The unspoken message that came to many minds was that there could be more liberations.
But early indications suggest that public opinion is deeply divided over whether Palestinian prisoners should be released in exchange for hostages.
In Tel Aviv, a hostagetaking clock shows how long the kidnapped people have been in captivity. Protests take place there during the day and candlelight vigils at night.
Posters with the faces of Hamas hostages cover the walls all around.
In Be’eri, the sounds of Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza can be heard from the street every minute or two.
In the middle of a former garden now filled with ash, Gilad sees his grandson’s soccer ball untouched beneath a sandy layer of soot.