Shirit Yerushalmi holds a sign with the picture of her daughter Eden Yerushalmi in her home in Tel Aviv last Tuesday.Luis De Vega Hernández
“Shani, they got me,” Eden Yerushalmi whispered to her older sister on the phone on the morning of October 7, as she was captured by militants during Hamas’s unprecedented attack that day. It was the last seconds of an almost four-hour conversation in which the young woman told her family live about the hell she experienced at the Supernova festival, where 260 people were murdered and several dozen kidnapped. One of them is Eden Yerushalmi herself, whose incredible adventures were recreated by her mother Shirit and her uncle Guy Izhaki in the family residence in Tel Aviv. They haven’t heard from her since, whether she’s injured, who’s holding her, or where. There are 43 days of absolute silence.
Several thousand people, including relatives of those hostages, arrived in Jerusalem on Saturday afternoon after five days on foot from Tel Aviv to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a last-minute speech to the country, the president, increasingly challenged by the war, said there would be an agreement to release them.
The 49-year-old mother has perfectly counted the days without her daughter, who turned 24 on October 14 and is already trapped somewhere on the Strip. Shirit visualizes the moment as he walks through the front door again, so he keeps hope. Although there is a team of volunteers addressing the needs of the families of the approximately 240 hostages held by Palestinian militiamen, the process is “lengthy and difficult” amid so much uncertainty. She finds it difficult to relive the last conversation she had with her daughter, the day a young waitress saw two friends murdered, tried to hide, and was eventually kidnapped.
On Saturday, Eden, along with Dorin and Lior, were scheduled to work as waitresses at the event, which took place over the weekend in Reim, about five kilometers from Gaza. The three arrived on Friday afternoon to enjoy the music and stay there. At half past six in the morning, Shirit received the first call. “Mom, they’re attacking with missiles and it’s suspended. “I’m returning home,” he warned. An hour later the second. “Terrorists are attacking,” he described tearfully. The shots could be heard constantly in the background while the mother tried to calm her down, telling her that they were certainly soldiers who had come to the rescue. Quite the opposite.
The three friends managed to reach the car and hide inside. Amid this horror, the attackers searched the vehicle. Dorin and Lior died, while Eden remained unharmed beneath their bodies. He told everything on his cell phone until the battery died. Then, thanks to the phones of one of her murdered friends, she communicated almost constantly with her sister Shani, 25. “I feel the blood dripping over me,” he said in a whisper, not daring to escape.
Eden Yerushalmi, in a picture provided by her family.
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After an hour and a half, someone opened the car door. She thought they were coming to rescue her, but no, it was another festival goer seeking shelter. They both decided to run away, each for themselves. Eden ended up crouching between a grove of trees. The family followed their every move from home on the phone. The young woman described what she could see: armed men everywhere, shooting everyone they could. He said some wore uniforms like those of the Israeli army, but he had no doubt they were attackers. At around 11:00 a.m. the siege on her tightened and the militiamen discovered her, according to the recording made by her sister Shani and provided to EL PAÍS.
Life for the whole family ended here. They cling to the young woman’s courage and determination and trust that she will be able to return home and find the rhythm of her life again. They know that she fell unharmed into the hands of her captors, and that gives them some peace of mind, even if they have no proof of life since the phone call abruptly ended. They don’t even know whether it is in the hands of Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Palestinian civilians. If he is with Hamas, the family wants to believe he will be with other hostages. When she’s guarded by civilians, it’s easier for her to be alone.
On October 7, radical Islamists killed about 1,200 people in Israeli territory and abducted about 240 to Gaza – the worst attack Israel had suffered in its 75-year history. The current war broke out immediately. The Israeli military operation on land, sea and air has already cost the lives of more than 12,000 people in the Palestinian enclave on the Mediterranean coast.
Shirit, a petite woman who smiles every now and then when she thinks of her daughter, sits on a sofa and keeps looking at the poster with Eden’s photo that she left on the table. The young woman worked as a waitress while training to become a Pilates teacher. At the same time he enjoyed life. I went to the beach, I went partying, I traveled. On Sunday the 8th I had tickets for a one day trip to Greece. This year he had spent a month in Mexico and next March he planned to travel to India for a few weeks. The photo of the poster that his mother looks at so often was taken during a visit to the Sinai Desert (Egypt). “He wasn’t a time waster,” emphasizes his uncle with a smile.
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The mother hardly eats and hardly sleeps. The person telling it is Liat Blumenfeld, a 27-year-old lawyer. Only three more than Eden. The lawyer is among 400 volunteers working for a control center that the Israeli government set up after the attack to provide assistance to the families of the abducted and missing, combining three branches. “One for the secret service, who collects information about the hostages and is responsible for communicating it to the families; one on social affairs and media, providing information to the media and supporting families; and a legal one.” Blumenfeld is one of them. She is the liaison to the Israeli executive branch. He fills out forms, he takes care of the bureaucracy, he will try to give them access to social assistance for people affected by the war. This is not the case, but there are households that even need a roof after their house was damaged by the attack. The goal is for each family to always work with the same team: two soldiers, two social workers, a lawyer.
The lawyer Liat Blumenfeld, photographed in Madrid. Santi Burgos
On October 16, the army went to Eden’s mother’s home to inform them that the young woman was missing. They returned three days later and considered her kidnapped. “We assume that they will not give us any details at the intelligence level, neither about the conditions in which she is, nor about the location, nor about anything,” comments the young woman’s uncle, Guy Izhaki, 51 years old. The family has preferred to remain isolated, they do not research social networks, they do not watch the news. But they know that Eden’s circle of friends has been looking for traces of the young woman. Other hostages appear in videos recorded on October 7th. Here, nothing.
Hope and uncertainty
Blumenfeld explains that this is precisely why the case is very difficult. Although in reality they all are. The lawyer traveled to Madrid for personal reasons, but decided to contact the Israeli embassy to tell Eden’s story. He remembers the first time he saw his parents, he says they give him hope. “The father is a construction worker, the mother works for the Israeli postal service. But now they can’t work. They constantly think about the moment when they will see their daughter again. “They bought the things they thought I might need when I got home,” the lawyer said.
In Tel Aviv, members of the army come to the family home every Friday. There are weeks when they visit her twice. But nothing can put an end to this uncertainty, which is so heavy that it is overwhelming. Although Shirit always tries to think positively. She understands that her daughter must be very afraid, but at the same time she wants to believe that Eden knows that her family is constantly thinking about her, that they won’t leave her alone and that she is waiting for her to come and save her. There are families of hostages who have been very critical of the Israeli government and its airstrikes campaign in Gaza. Shirit trusts the executive branch and military to bring her daughter home. His brother Guy understands that “both are doing their best” given the seeming contradiction of ending Hamas while freeing the hostages.
In Shirit’s mind, images of her daughter exist alongside the families of Eden’s friends who were murdered. Shirit was able to accompany Dorin’s mother at the mourning ceremony, which, according to Jewish tradition, takes place a week after death. But during this time he hardly left the family home. Except Thursday. Thanks to a permit from the army, Shirit went with Eden’s father Nador and his two other daughters to the exact point in this forest, near the Supernova Festival and the kidnapping of the young woman. “I want to go to this place and feel my daughter,” he explained before his visit. Eden sent them the location over the phone using the Google Maps application. There they heard it for the last time. They just hope to hear his voice again.
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