With hostages’ fate uncertain, Israeli families tend spark of hope
| Washington
Gur Tovbin woke up at 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, opened Instagram, and started seeing videos of the Hamas assault. Then his best friend’s mom called.
At 7 a.m., Nir Forti had messaged his sister, saying everything was fine at the desert rave party he was attending. His mom, who had heard that Hamas militants had attacked the party, hadn’t heard anything since. No one had. They still haven’t.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onHamas is believed to be holding more than 150 hostages in Gaza after Saturday’s attack. Finding them and securing their release poses an unprecedented challenge for Israel, which is poised for a major ground offensive.
But for the past week, Mr. Tovbin has been part of a group of friends scouring the internet for evidence of Mr. Forti’s fate. And they are part of only one among many such groups.
Hamas is believed to be holding as many as 150 hostages in its Gaza hideouts. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised parliament on Thursday evening that “we will not slacken in the effort to bring them back home.” But he has kept any plan he has very close to his chest.
A prisoner swap might resolve the problem. Or Israeli special forces might attempt to rescue the hostages. But for the time being, the worst thing is not knowing.
Says Yonatan Lulu Shamriz, whose brother has disappeared, “He is missing, but we pray he is only kidnapped.”
Gur Tovbin woke up at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, opened Instagram, and started seeing videos of the Hamas assault. Then his best friend’s mom called.
At 7 a.m., Nir Forti had messaged his sister, who was concerned by reports of a Hamas attack on the desert rave party he was attending. He was okay, he told her.
No one has heard anything from him since, his mom says.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onHamas is believed to be holding more than 150 hostages in Gaza after Saturday’s attack. Finding them and securing their release poses an unprecedented challenge for Israel, which is poised for a major ground offensive.
Mr. Tovbin had met Mr. Forti in kindergarten. They went through high school and military service together, and lived on the same kibbutz. “This is like the most loved person on Earth,” says Mr. Tovbin.
So Mr. Forti’s friends banded together on social media to scour videos, share information, and try to get press attention.
“Our government right now is so weak,” says Mr. Tovbin. “They are basically in shock.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose own brother was killed in a 1976 rescue operation of a hijacked Israeli flight, embraced the hostages’ families in his speech to the Israeli Knesset last night and said his point person is “in constant contact” with them.
“We will not slacken in the effort to bring them back home,” he said. His office declined to elaborate.
Where are they?
Gaza militant groups are believed to be holding more than 150 hostages. Among them are grandmothers and toddlers, a woman whisked away on a motorbike, and a captive covered in a sheet and driven off in a golf cart. Some are foreigners, including up to 21 Americans.
While Israel has retrieved hostages and the remains of its citizens in the past, the scope and complexity of this hostage crisis is beyond anything the country has faced before. That poses a strategic challenge as the Israeli military prepares for a major ground offensive in Gaza.
Militants are likely hiding the hostages in different locations – possibly including underground tunnels – and are already threatening to execute them if Israel bombs civilian housing without prior warning.
The Red Cross has said it is in daily contact with Hamas, and stands ready to visit those held and facilitate communications between them and their families. Still, many experts say that attempts by special forces to rescue the hostages are the most likely outcome.
“I don’t know how you negotiate under these circumstances,” says Gershon Baskin, who shuttled between Hamas and Israel to secure the 2011 release of captured soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held for five years in Gaza. “I think that there are very few if any options for getting the hostages out through an agreement.”
That has not dissuaded Qatar, which backs Hamas, from reportedly working on a deal by which the hostages could be swapped for 36 Palestinian women and children, according to a Reuters report based on an unnamed source. If Qatar was really serious, says Mr. Baskin, they would threaten Hamas leaders based there with deportation unless they secured a swap.
Hamas, which is thought to be only one of several groups holding the hostages, has demanded the release of the more than 8,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in exchange for their safe return – including 559 serving life sentences for murdering Israelis.
Since Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and Hamas won elections the following year, the Israeli government has come under international criticism for largely sealing off the territory. Hamas has fought five wars with Israel since 2006, and repeatedly lobbed missiles across the Gaza border into Israel.
“We pray he is only kidnapped”
But this latest militant attack is like something out of the ISIS playbook, says Mr. Baskin.
One initial challenge has been figuring out who exactly was kidnapped. Yonatan Lulu Shamriz, from the kibbutz Kfar Aza on the Gaza border, hasn’t heard from his younger brother, Alon Lulu Shamriz, since 10 a.m. on Saturday, when Alon messaged him that terrorists were about to enter his house. Yonatan told him that he was strong, and that he loved him. There was no response.
“He is missing but we pray he is only kidnapped,” says the elder Mr. Shamriz, whose neighbor was killed.
“What they did to us, what they did to babies and families – it’s unforgivable,” he says of the Palestinian attackers, adding that he had been a strong believer in coexistence. But now, while he says he would be “thrilled” if Palestinian civilians could escape to Egypt, the other side of Gaza’s southern border, he sees only one solution: “Gaza should be like a parking lot.”
Mr. Tovbin also doesn’t know for sure if his friend Mr. Forti was kidnapped or killed, but he has been working with others to find videos with any clue to his whereabouts. Some are even learning Arabic, or brushing up on what Arabic they knew, to aid in the search.
Others can be more certain that their loved ones were indeed abducted. More than 20 different people sent Yaniv Yaakov a video of his brother and his brother’s girlfriend being kidnapped from their bomb shelter in Nir-Oz, a small kibbutz of about 300 from which he says more than 70 people are missing. His brother’s children were also kidnapped from their mother’s house, she has confirmed.
“We really feel betrayed by our government, they didn’t keep us safe,” says Mr. Yaakov, who lives about an hour north outside Ashdod.
He has set up a “war room” in his bomb shelter, with two computers, and is working with his brother’s former wife to contact anyone who can provide more information and pressure the Israeli government and international community to keep the hostage issue front and center.
“I don’t think that our government or the world should focus on clearing the Hamas out of Gaza,” he says. “I think we should all concentrate on bringing [the hostages] home safe and sound.”
In the meantime, the effort to locate and rescue the hostages is giving friends and family a sense of purpose and solidarity.
“Definitely there’s a sense of coming together for a shared cause,” says Mr. Tovbin.
