My father, Oded Lifshitz, was taken hostage on 7 October 2023. My mother was taken hostage, too, but was released two weeks later. But my father has been held in Gaza ever since. Our family friend and neighbour Chana Katzir returned from Gaza 48 days later in the first hostage deal and told us she was with him there and that he had survived his kidnapping, despite being shot. Chana died recently and is now buried between her husband, murdered on 7 October, and her son, also a hostage, whose body was recovered from Gaza in April. The Israel Defense Forces believe he was murdered by Palestinian Islamic Jihad in mid-January.
Beyond Chana’s account, we have no further news about my father. Like many other hostage families, we don’t know if he is dead or alive. We may find out this weekend. Hamas is set to release a list on Saturday of who in the first stage of the deal is still alive and who isn’t. We have infinite questions about what our loved ones have endured in more than 470 days of captivity, but may soon face the most binary of answers. We are bracing ourselves. I wish I knew how to prepare for that, knew what was the right thing to do. What to say to all those hoping and praying with us.
I am realistic about my father’s prospects. He is 84. It would be unfair for me to demand of him that he survived, though I do allow myself some wishful thinking. My community of kibbutz Nir Oz has been physically destroyed and suffered unimaginable losses. One in four of its 400 members either murdered or kidnapped; 29 remain hostage. Other border communities suffered similar destruction and I am well aware of the devastation this war has visited on Gaza. We could easily drift into despair.
I take inspiration from my friend Galit, who had her birthday this week. Her daughter and mother were murdered on 7 October. It seemed inappropriate to wish her happy birthday, so I wished her a birthday of light. Galit amazes me – how she faces her reality and continues to find meaning in the work she does with autistic children, like her murdered daughter.
I look at the days ahead and ask to remain brave enough to face reality. At least we will know. There will be tears of sorrow and tears of joy, like those I shed last weekend seeing the brave and beautiful Emily Damari reunited with her mother, Mandy. It was hard to remember feeling that kind of joy in a long, long time.
This deal is not perfect but it’s the only one on the table. It is fragile and if we want to see more joyful family reunions like we saw with Emily, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher last weekend, we need to keep up the pressure on all parties to see it through.
It is hard enough being the adult daughter of hostages – I cannot imagine being the parent of one. I know that amid the joy of witnessing Doron, Emily and Romi embrace their mothers, other parents, waiting agonisingly for their children, can find the reunions hard to watch. We who might have loved ones returning soon tell them we will not stop fighting until all our hostages return. My mum tells me when she closes her eyes at night that she is back in the Hamas tunnels in Gaza, with the hostages she left behind. “Until they are all back,” she says, “I cannot escape the tunnels.” We are in this together.
The shadow of Hamas looms over every exchange, every moment of joy. There are two women from our kibbutz on the list of those presumed alive, one of whom is Shiri Bibas, the mother of Kfir and Ariel: the baby and young boy who Hamas kidnapped, still holds, and whose fate we do not yet know. Another released hostage, Nili Margalit, says she watched Hamas film Shiri’s husband, Yarden, as they told him that his wife and children were killed. Hamas, we hope, was lying in that video but its intention is so cruel; how can we even begin to understand Yarden’s agony?
As I watched the masked Hamas gunmen terrifyingly crowding and intimidating Emily, Romi and Doron when they were handed over to the Red Cross last weekend, I asked myself: who would wish Hamas on the Palestinians? In Israel, I, along with many hostage families, have been tireless in our criticism of the Israeli government, who we see as having delayed and sabotaged previous deals. Here in London, where I live, I sometimes wonder why some with so much to say, including voices in the media, have so little to say about an organisation that kidnaps infants, mothers and elderly people and that has brought immense devastation on its own people in the name of jihad.
Polling conducted after the return of the three hostages showed that 68% of Israelis support the completion of both stages of the deal, that’s to say the return of all hostages in exchange for ending the war, withdrawing from Gaza and exchanging prisoners. There are also Israeli fanatics who oppose this deal, like those burning down houses in the West Bank this week. We need our government to listen to the majority who want this deal, even if the price is high and even if many of the Palestinian prisoners being released have innocent blood on their hands, and not pander to the fanatics who do not.
For us, the families of hostages, the weekends ahead will be agony as we wait for the lists. When I tell people that my father’s chances are slim, they sometimes imagine acts of care and compassion from Palestinians who might be looking after him; some are certain that his “good deeds” peace activism, and years of driving Palestinians from the border to hospitals in Israel, as well as his ability to speak Arabic, will save him. I am not at all sure. It requires imagining an enemy having humanity towards us. But in that act of imagination we can perhaps plant seeds of seeing each other beyond narratives of hate and destruction. We must hold on to this fragile glimmer of hope if we want it to grow and not just be engaged in wishful thinking.
“I am first of all a human,” my mother tells anyone who will listen. My parents spent a lifetime working for peace and a two-state solution. Palestinians and Israelis need and deserve better. But for that to ever come to pass, we need the hostages to be freed from the hands of Hamas and into the arms of their families. And for that to happen, we need this fragile deal to hold.
Sharone Lifschitz is a London based film-maker and academic, originally from kibbutz Nir Oz, whose parents were taken hostage on 7 October
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