On Oct. 7, 2023, my freedom, security and peace were brutally taken from me. That day, I was kidnapped from my home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. The rolling fields and beautiful farmland of our kibbutz turned into a battlefield as hordes of terrorists raided our homes, murdering, kidnapping, burning and looting. A quarter of the community that I was a part of for 56 years was either murdered or kidnapped. I am 86 years old; in my life, I had never experienced this sort of horror.
When the terrorists arrived at my house, it was Saturday morning. I was in my pajamas. I lived alone. They came into my home with guns pointed at me; I couldn’t escape. It was in the early stages of the attack. At first they wanted money. I took them to my bag in the bedroom and told them to take it, but then they wanted me, too. They forced me outside, where I saw many terrorists sweeping through the kibbutz and entering through the broken fence. I saw them looting and breaking everything — throwing all the clothes out of the closets, cutting everything up, breaking and stealing things.
My captors held my arms as they sat me on a golf cart, and we drove off toward the border with Gaza. I held myself together, for my children’s sake. I told myself I wouldn’t let them break me. I wouldn’t give them the pleasure of seeing me afraid. I didn’t cry. When they pointed a camera at my face, I smiled. That image was broadcast around the world. I was not going to give them the satisfaction of terrorizing me.
All I knew during my abduction was that there were swarms of terrorists. Some of them had gone into my daughter’s house at the same time. I only learned later, when I was with other hostages from Nir Oz, that my kibbutz was set on fire, and that while this was happening, Tamir, my eldest grandson, age 38, had left his wife and two young children in their family safe room and gone out to defend the community. We would only find out many months later that he was kidnapped and murdered. His body remains in Gaza today.
All that knowledge came later. First there was just my captivity. For 49 unbearably long days, I was held in horrible conditions.
In the beginning, I was completely alone in a barren room. To get through the nights, I went over my entire life in my head, reliving memories from before being taken. I could see I was being held in a family apartment, but my room was completely sealed; I couldn’t see any light and had no sense of day or night. I was there alone, except for the armed guards who were with me in the room at all times. Once a day, I was given food by a woman who appeared to be the owner of the house.
After two weeks, I was transferred to another hiding place in what seemed to be a hospital complex. The terrorists put me in a small room with some people from my kibbutz. Finally I was with some familiar faces. There was my neighbor who had lived next door to me for more than 20 years, as well as several young children and their mothers. There were days when we had nothing to eat. Two little girls in the room with us cried, “Mom, I want to eat, I’m hungry.”
And then there was Eitan Yahalomi, a 12-year-old boy who joined us after being held captive in complete isolation for 16 days. What a wonderful, marvelous child. I have kidney problems, so I didn’t go to the bathroom much. Eitan would ask me, worried: “Yaffa, why don’t you go with everyone else?” I haven’t met many children with such a kind heart. When he came to us, Eitan didn’t know anything about the fate of his family — his father, mother and two younger siblings. He was worried about them. We later learned Eitan’s entire family was kidnapped on Oct. 7. His mother and two young sisters managed to escape after they fell from their captor’s motorbike. Eitan was released a couple of days after me, but Eitan’s father, Ohad, is still held captive by Hamas.
Despite the great difficulty throughout my captivity, I maintained optimism for the sake of others. I kept telling them that we would return home by Hanukkah. I felt it was my role to keep hope alive for everyone else. Without this optimism, there would have been no way to survive. I needed it to get through this ordeal, and the aftermath.
On the morning of Nov. 24, our captors woke us up and told some of us to get dressed and be ready: We were going home. We sat for hours waiting, not really knowing if it would actually happen. We were dressed in disguise so that our identities wouldn’t be known.
When I returned to Israel I was hospitalized for four days, then I moved to a hotel where I stayed for two weeks until I found the assisted-living facility where I am today. I haven’t gone back home to Kibbutz Nir Oz. It won’t be habitable again for a few years, which is incredibly hard. At 86 years old, I have to start over. The absence of home, the need to start anew, the longing — it’s all very present.
Still, I try to hold some hope that the remaining hostages will return to us. It becomes harder as the days go by, and every time we learn about more kibbutz members and other hostages murdered.
Each day that passes puts the remaining hostages’ lives at risk. It’s been a year. They don’t have enough food, water, medicine, sanitation, daylight or sleep. After all of this time their mental and physical state is almost surely deteriorating. How much longer can they endure all this?
Although I have returned, my heart, in many ways, is still captive in Gaza. My mind keeps going back to those days. The soul struggles to bear the memories. I’m surrounded by love and warmth, but rehabilitation is made harder because my home is gone. I had a whole life in the kibbutz. I raised a family of four children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren there. I had friends; I was part of a community. In one morning all of that vanished. Some of my neighbors were forced to move away, some are buried underground and some are hostages.
How can I move on when we have no grave to visit, no place to grieve my grandson, no way to put an end to our tragic story?
The road to recovery for me will be long, both physically and mentally. But any true rehabilitation for me, or for the rest of this country, is impossible while the days pass and the hostages are still there.
I, who experienced this hell, implore the negotiating teams, the mediators, the world leaders and anyone else reading these words to help us bring all of the hostages home. They are like me: human beings, parents, grandparents, siblings, children. They are suffering, they are afraid, they need help. Each of them is a story of courage and survival, but their time is running out.
This is not an issue that should concern only Jews or Israelis. It is an issue for anyone concerned with human rights or with freedom. We are ordinary people who were kidnapped on an ordinary Saturday. And what has come since? Only war, only destruction, only sadness.
Bring Tamir home. Bring all the hostages home. Allow us to heal as a family, as a community and as a nation. We cannot do this until they all return.
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