The families of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip have spent 12 months in a kind of suspended animation, trapped in the amber of last Oct. 7 while the rest of the world spins forward to new if related crises: Iranian missile attacks, targeted assassinations of militant leaders and the outbreak of war in Lebanon.
Through it all, more than 60 living hostages, and the bodies of about 35 others who are believed to be dead, are still in Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities. About 250 people were taken hostage in the Hamas-led attacks last October.
The remaining hostages have become public figures in absentia, and by extension their loved ones have gained a sort of fame as well. That has made their days both horrifying and strange.
They have spoken at rallies in Israel and the United States. They have attended the State of the Union address in Washington and American political conventions, and traveled with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. They have met American officials and Hollywood celebrities eager to show their support.
“I personally met Jerry Seinfeld,” said Tomer Keshet. He is a cousin of Yarden Bibas, whose family became instantly known last October after images of his wife, Shiri, and red-haired children, 3-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir, being kidnapped during the Hamas-led attacks were widely shared online.
“I sit in a room with people I have seen only on TV and it is surreal,” said Mr. Keshet, who also met with Hillary Clinton in Washington.
But for Mr. Keshet and others in a similar situation, all of their public advocacy has not achieved what they most desire: the return of their loved ones.
“It is a horrible feeling to meet these people who have major influence all over the world and not get our family back,” Mr. Keshet said.
On Monday, the first anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks, a small group of the families of hostages and their supporters gathered a short distance from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem to renew calls for an urgent deal to bring them home.
“A whole year in which time has stopped. I’m still on the same day,” said Shai Wenkert, whose son Omer was abducted from a music festival near the Gaza border.
The anniversary was particularly cruel for the family of Idan Shtivi, 28, a university student and amateur photographer who was also abducted from the festival. On Sunday night, the Israeli authorities informed his parents that Mr. Shtivi was presumed dead based on the available evidence, his father said in a television interview.
Now that Israel has begun an invasion of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, many of the families fear that the fate of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip has begun to recede from the public consciousness.
“I feel the hostage situation has been put to the back,” said Ofri Bibas-Levy, Yarden’s sister. She said she wants world leaders to negotiate a comprehensive cease-fire that will end the conflicts in both Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, and Gaza, to the south, and bring the remaining hostages home.
“If Lebanon goes into a cease-fire without the hostages, it is like a death sentence for my family,” she said. “We need to find a solution to the situation that will include the north and the south together.”
The Bibas family does not know if their loved ones are still alive. The last time that any of them received proof of life for Yarden was when images that showed him bleeding from the head circulated online last fall. In November, Hamas said Shiri, Ariel and Kfir had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli government has said there was no evidence to support that claim.
For many relatives of hostages, advocating for their loved ones has become something akin to a full-time job.
Ms. Bibas-Levy said she was grateful for the attention of the news media and world leaders. But it has sometimes been a double-edged sword: the haunting images of Shiri and her children have turned them into symbols of the crisis and generated a degree of public fascination about their fate that can be rattling.
“We have experienced a lot of psychological terror from Hamas, but also from the public,” said Ms. Bibas-Levy. “For them, it is a mystery what happened to our family. People attach their names to any new story that pops up, even if it is made up. And every time that happens, it shakes our whole world.”
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