In the square in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, renamed Captives’ Square, Ilia Taraschansky He holds a sign with his daughter’s photo with his arms raised. Gaula 13 year old girl kidnapped by Hamas during the massive attack over the south of Israel that launched the war in Gaza. Some people come and hug him and Ilia endures it stoically. That Black Saturday not only saw disappear his daughter. His 16 year old boy died of asphyxiation when the Palestinian gunmen They forced them to leave the safe room in which they were hiding, burning tires in front of the door after making a hole in the lock. He has no tears or hate left, she says, but he wants her Hamas and Netanyahu pay for what happened. “I have already paid the price. Half of me is dead. “I have no compassion left,” she says with astonishing serenity.
The devastating raid of the October 7in which they died 1,400 peoplemost of them civilians and many brutally murdered, has left a funeral atmosphere in Israeli society. This is a small country and almost everyone had a friend or family member in the kibbutz, moshav and agricultural towns on the outskirts of Loop. The sadness and the trauma are mixed with a renewed vulnerability that has revived the Holocaust memorythe same vulnerability as the Zionism they conspired to extirpate, almost always resorting to brute force. He visceral fear inherited from the jewish history is feeding the hunger for revengewhich mixed with years of dehumanization of Palestinianshelps explain the dimensions of the response in Gaza.
Between the families of the 246 hostages there is no consensus on how the government should act. The figure dances almost daily due to the difficulties that forensic experts are having to identify the victims of the massacre and subtract them from the total number of missing people. Many bodies are calcined or chopped. Some families are participating in the vigils and rallies without even having confirmation that their loved ones are in Gaza. This is the case of brothers Yair and Ethan Horn missing in the Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the main scenes of the brutal terrorist coven. “We have no confirmation, but we believe they are there,” says his uncle, Sergio Chmiel, 61. Also for the intelligence services It is proving difficult to obtain evidence about the whereabouts of the missing. The information reaches families in dribs and drabs.
Ceasefire or continuation of the war?
Most seem to be against the ceasefireunless preceded by the release of all hostages. Hamas has put an onerous starting price on the exchange: the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Around 6,000a figure that includes more than a thousand detained without charge and 170 children. “A month ago I would have said yes to the ceasefire, but knowing now all the horrible things they did, like cooking a baby in an oven, it seems like a immorality”, says Chmiel holding a poster with photos of his nephews.
Families are aware that with each passing day there are more options for their own perish in the bombings that are devastating Gaza, a policy that according to the prime minister Binyamin Natanyahuwill help put pressure on Hamas to surrender or release the hostages unconditionally. Among the two hundred there are also children, elderly, women and sick. To date the Islamists have freed four women. All civilians, two Americans. A fifth (military) was rescued by soldiers operating inside Gaza.
Diane Macabit You want a quick solution and at whatever price. When talking about his two twenty-something twins, two “healthy and beautiful” boys, cannot hold back the tears. “I want everything to stop. There has to be a ceasefire because I fear that something will happen to them because of what the Army is doing. “Every day is more dangerous,” she says, surrounded by family. Next to it, a very long Sabbath table, as decorated as those that that Black Saturday ended up destroying. On each empty chair, there is a sign with the name of a hostage. Some families have begun camping in the squarelocated in front of the Ministry of Defence.
Feeling of helplessness
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The captivity of the hostages is making it even more difficult collective mourningas well as the anger that many feel for the helplessness what they felt that day. The attack on Kibbutz Beriawhere Ilia Taraschansky lived with her two children, began on the 6.30 in the morning. At that time he received the first internal communication warning him that dozens of armed men had entered the kibbutz perimeter. But help did not arrive until many hours later. “It wasn’t until 9:30 p.m. when I first heard people speaking Hebrew with an Israeli accent, after many hours hiding behind a hedge,” he recalls now. His son had already died; his daughter, missing.
“I feel betrayed because the dimensions of the massacre They tell me that we were abandoned by the shortsightedness of state security. The kibbutz’s rapid response unit was supposed to hold out for about 15 minutes until reinforcements arrived, but it took hours,” adds Ilia, who like hundreds of thousands of Israelis from the Gaza periphery and the lebanon border these last few weeks have passed displaced in hotels, after being evacuated by the authorities. “This Government has blood on handsas you have Hamas. I want my daughter freed and then they all leave to be tried in court”, says Ilia.