The Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the two weeks that followed remain the darkest period of my life, and that of many of my Jewish peers. I was present in class, took exams, wrote essays and saw my friends. But I was not there, not fully. My mind and my heart were elsewhere. At the time, I thought my heart was simply in Israel, back on the streets I roamed during my gap year. It was not until this week that I realized my distracted and aching heart truly lay in Gaza, with the hostages that have been kept in tunnels for months. The hostages whose kidnapping started this war in the first place. All this time, I have been disengaged from the world around me, a world that would rather rip down kidnapped posters than remember their names.
This war has crippled my perception of Israel, its enemies, and even more so the progressive youth of America. Everything I was taught about Israel in Jewish day school has been challenged, leaving the truth almost unattainable. If I am confused, and I surely am, then no wonder the unaffected and uneducated youth of America championed the terrorizers of my people without questioning it. Among young and progressive Jewish people there is a common belief that after the Oct. 7 attacks, we have been betrayed by movements claiming to advocate for justice. I certainly agree with this sentiment, seeing a tremendous spike in Jewish hate among otherwise loving, accepting and warm communities. I stay up at night thinking about every unknown regarding this unwinnable war. What plagues my thoughts during the day are the hostages. I think of people in my community who wait for their loved ones to return. Cousins and friends of students at this university are still being held hostage. While I could think about the rules of war, international relations theory, or political outlooks for the future all day, I cannot consciously leave the hostages behind. The importance of these political debates fades away when I am forced to remember the innocent people kept in Gaza.
I remember back to the early days of the war, in those first two weeks after Oct. 7, how little hope I had for the lives of the hostages. I was sure none of them would make it out alive. The strength of the Jewish nation, however, has given me hope. It is hard to believe, but as time went on, as long as we didn’t receive news of their death, my hope grew stronger. This ended this week. Intelligence insights from the Israeli Defense Forces estimate that nearly a quarter of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are dead (NYT). Reading this headline drew me right back into those first two weeks after Oct 7.
I had become numb to the dreadful news we see every day, but this awoke those debilitating feelings within me again. The hope that grew within me faded. I imagine tragedy embodied in the mothers and fathers at their children’s funerals, several months after they have been missing. In October it was hard to imagine that this horrifying ordeal could go on for this long, yet here we are. It’s hard to believe that people, who on Oct. 6 were joyful and free, have been trapped in tunnels for over 130 days. As this war continues, it is hard to imagine an end, and even harder to imagine continuing on without these people who deserved so much better.
As faith in the effectiveness of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza dwindles, especially in regard to the goal of freeing the hostages, this news is disheartening at best. And as the internet requires that me and my Jewish family either wholeheartedly back Israel’s efforts or wholeheartedly call for its destruction, I wonder where humanity has gone. During the progression of this war, my political convictions have changed drastically. This is true for many Jewish people, and certainly true for many Israeli citizens. With anti-Netanyahu protests sweeping the country in the months before the war started, many Israelis find themselves conflicted regarding his viability as Prime Minister. Netanyahu supporters cited his hard-line security measures as their reason for support, but recent polls have discovered that support for Netanyahu dropped since Oct. 7 (Reuters). In fact, only 15% of Israelis want Netanyahu to be the Prime Minister once the war is over (Reuters).
It is widely known that Jews often find themselves passionately disagreeing with each other on a plethora of topics. This sort of discourse formed our nation’s cultural and religious narrative, namely the Talmud which is essentially several generations worth of recorded disagreements that we still study today. Despite political, religious and cultural disagreements that make the Jewish nation diverse and vibrant, what I have found each Jew does, or at least should, agree on is the fate of the hostages.
It is a shame how contentious this topic is, even within the Jewish community. The small but loud sect of Jews that identify as anti-Zionists have not put enough emphasis on advocating for our Jewish family held by Hamas. While I can respect their devotion to the plight of the Palestinian people, as it is undeniably a worthy cause that deserves attention, I cannot help but hold resentment for their indifference when it comes to the hostages. To hold space for one group of people and spit in the face of the other feels heartless. For those anti-Zionist Jews, I urge them to review their hopefully well-intentioned advocacy and commit to caring for the hostages as much as they care for other innocent lives. Much of what I am seeing online from these communities condemns the loss of innocent lives, but these condemnations fall short of mentioning the people still held captive. The people still in those tunnels might not even know how much time has passed since that horrific day. But it’s not only these anti-Zionist Jews that have betrayed the hostages. Many families of those who are still held in Gaza argue that the IDF’s campaign’s failure acts as the same betrayal (NYT). These families protest the government, calling for a focused and targeted strategy to negotiate the release of the hostages, rather than a full-scale campaign on the ground in Gaza, which effectively puts their loved ones in danger. This sentiment resonated deeply with me.
As I’m losing hope for the fate of the hostages, I am also losing hope for the future of a prosperous Gaza as Israel’s neighbor. The way I see it, every military action is difficult to consider a success, even if its mission may have been met. Early Monday morning two hostages were rescued from an apartment building in Rafah because of an Israeli raid (APNews). The return of these two men, Fernando Simon Marman and Louis Har is a miracle. It is miraculous that they are alive, and it is miraculous that the IDF was able to successfully extract them. It is not lost on me, and should not be lost on you, the catastrophic loss of life that made this possible. I have argued for the hostages to remain at the top of our minds and even in the minds of Israel’s opposers, despite political differences. These innocent people deserve to come home safely, but so do the innocent people being used as human shields by Hamas. Everything is done at the cost of something else. The safety of our hostages aligns directly with the safety of Palestinians and Israelis; they are impossibly unsafe while Hamas is in power. As the layers of this military confrontation become more entangled, it seems that the only sure thing anymore is my pure and unwavering wish for the hostages to come home.
If enough people cared about the hostages as much as they should, perhaps the scale of the violence could decrease. Perhaps a political or diplomatic end could be achieved if the safe return of those unjustly held in Gaza were the top priority. Of course, my words will not reach those making decisions in Israel, especially not if the words of the families of hostages aren’t either. However, I can attempt to bring the stories of the hostages back into the front of our minds. I don’t wish that my Jewish family feel what we felt in those two weeks after Oct. 7 ever again, but I do hope that the return of the hostages never leaves our collective prayers.
