It took Minco a while to realize that her second cousin Ofir had been kidnapped. “On October 7, I saw that everything was going on,” she says. “When I noticed that really bad things were happening, I sent my family a message to wish them strength.” She then received a message back saying there were concerns about Ofir. “It wasn’t until about five or six days later that we received confirmation that he had been kidnapped.”
However, fate was not limited to Ophir. “These were extremely confusing days. On Tuesday morning we received the message that a niece had last contact with the family,” she sighs. “When she called, her boyfriend was shot dead in her arms.” Contact was then broken. “A few hours later we received the message that she had also been found murdered. It is really terrible.”
Whether her second cousin Ofir is still alive remains a guess. “We assume he is still alive,” Minco said. “It’s very difficult to imagine anything, so your ‘imagination’ runs wild. Is he in a tunnel? Is he in people’s homes or is he tied up? You just don’t know.”
Because Ofir is also partly Dutch, he was urgently granted Dutch nationality this week. His grandfather Juchel Engel (and therefore a cousin of Minco) had a Dutch mother. In the hope that there might be a greater chance due to international pressure that Hamas will let his grandson go if he also has Dutch nationality, grandfather Engel contacted the Dutch embassy in Israel.
Minco knew that the family was working on this in the background. The director of the memorial center now recognizes things from her own work. “During the war it was always about which list you were or could be on,” she explains. “I get that feeling. He is now on a different list with dual nationality, but the future will show whether that helps.”
The end of the war between Israel and Hamas does not appear to be in sight yet. In fact, Israel is said to be on the eve of a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told ground forces on standby that they will “soon see the inside of the strip.” With this he seems to hint at a speedy ground offensive. “Now you see Gaza in the distance, soon it will be from the inside. The command will follow soon,” he said.
Minco shudders at the thought of such an offensive. “The answer is also so intense,” said Minco. “Such a ground offensive will again result in a large number of casualties on both sides. It is horrible.”