"This week is Passover - the festival of freedom," Liri Albag, an Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza for 15 months by Hamas, told a crowd of thousands gathered in Tel Aviv last weekend. In recent weeks, powerful voices have joined the fight to bring home Israel's remaining hostages - those of the captives released during the latest ceasefire deal that began in January and lasted two months.Despite their ongoing trauma, frailty and grief, a number of ex-hostages have felt compelled to give their harrowing testimony on stage at demonstrations, in long TV interviews or in meetings overseas with world leaders.They have detailed their own harsh treatment and expressed fears for the fate of others left behind, especially since Israel cut off all humanitarian aid to Gaza at the start of March and restarted its military offensive two weeks later, saying this was to put pressure on Hamas.
Twenty-four of those who have been held captive since the deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel of 7 October 2023 are still believed to be alive.Witnessing the collapse of the ceasefire has been unbearable, the former hostages say.
"We have no time. The earth is burning under our feet," insisted Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old farmer abducted by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Kibbutz Nir Oz and freed in January, who also spoke at Saturday's rally in Hostages Square.
"I'm not really here. Only half of me is standing here," said Omer Wenkert, another former hostage, in his emotive address. Part of us, part of all of us, is still captive in Gaza." He called on Israeli leaders to take action on the hostages saying: "Prime Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, it's on you to get them back."
Many of the released hostages want a return to the original ceasefire deal which brought them home in exchange for some 1,800 Palestinians being freed by Israel.The agreement was meant to see a second phase in which remaining Israeli captives would be returned and the war would end.However, Israel now rejects this and is pushing instead for more hostages to be freed through an extension of the first phase of the truce.Hamas has agreed only to an extension involving the release of fewer hostages than Israel will accept, and ultimately wants to return to the original ceasefire framework.Since appearing on stage, flanked by masked gunmen and looking pale and thin, at a Hamas handover ceremony in Gaza City in February, US-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel has turned into an active campaigner.
He was part of a group of eight ex-hostages that met President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last month - crediting him with securing the recent deal that brought back 25 hostages and the bodies of eight others and urging him to help get ceasefire negotiations back on track.
"It's urgent and every day that goes on is just more and more suffering and more and more possible death and psychological devastation," Mr Siegel told 60 Minutes on the US network CBS.
Some of the freed hostages have openly accused the Israeli government of betrayal and abandonment and, in some cases, they have drawn vicious online threats for their comments.No wonder, then, that many continue to pin their hopes on Trump.Along with Keith Siegel and his wife Aviva, another recently released hostage, Yair Horn, followed Netanyahu to Washington this week. The group had their own set of meetings with high-ranking officials and again met the president.Mr Horn wore a red hoodie showing his younger brother, Eitan, who is still held in Gaza. The brothers were abducted together from Nir Oz and a haunting video released by Hamas showed them on the eve of Yair's release - hugging, with Eitan weeping.
Mr Siegel described how he and others with whom he was initially held - including women and children - had been forced to adjust to life in the tunnels.He said there was constant abuse: "I witnessed a young woman who was being tortured by the terrorist. I mean literal torture, not just in the figurative sense."
The small, red-haired Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, have become a symbol of the horror of the events of 7 October.
When he was released, looking gaunt and hollow-eyed after nearly 500 days in captivity, it was clear his captors had not told him what most Israelis already knew - that his British-born wife, Lianne and teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were among some 1,200 people killed on 7 October.Just three weeks after his release, Mr Sharabi gave a heart-wrenching TV interview to Israel's Channel 12 TV. He described how he had learnt the fate of his family from a social worker he knew after the Red Cross handed him to the Israeli army.
A day after Trump's Netanyahu meeting, Mr Horn stood with the US leader at a Republican event and stressed his gratitude to him.Mr Sharabi - who has since met Trump and addressed the UN Security Council - said he decided he must talk about his experiences even as he was processing his loss because: "It's very simple, no-one must be left behind."When the IDI recently asked Israelis which of the state's declared war goals - toppling Hamas or bringing home all the hostages - was more important, 68% said it was the latter, more than in polls last year.Meeting at the White House on Monday, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu said there were ongoing efforts to restart truce talks and free the hostages.Despite his strong words, many of the former hostages question Netanyahu's commitment.For his political survival, the prime minister relies on far-right allies who back continued fighting in Gaza and military occupation of the strip.
Madina Mammadova\\EDnews
