Last night, Monday, March 17, the IDF resumed bombing Gaza after a two-month ceasefire which began in January, during which over 33 hostages were released, seven of whom returned in caskets.
“This follows Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s office shared in a release.
In Israel, hostages who faced the end of one ceasefire before returning home in a second ceasefire deal, are reliving what they felt when they learned fighting had resumed after the first ceasefire deal fell apart on December 1, 2023. Many have taken to social media to share their feelings and memories from that time and to call for one thing: the return of their fellow hostages. As of today, 59 hostages remain in Gaza, and at least 24 are believed to still be alive.
Here is what some former hostages had to say:
Yarden Bibas
Yarden, captured from his home in Nir Oz, was released on February 1. He is the father of late Ariel and Kfir and husband of Shiri Bibas, whose bodies were released on February 20 and 22. This is the statement he shared on Instagram:
“Israel’s decision to return to fighting brings me back to Gaza, to the moments where I heard the sounds of explosions around me and where I feared for my life as I was afraid that the tunnel where I was being held would collapse. My wife and children were kidnapped alive and were brutally murdered in captivity. The military pressure endangers the hostages while an agreement brings them home. I am petrified for my best friends, David and Ariel Cunio.
“I lost my Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, but David can still return alive to Sharon, Emma and Yuli and Ariel to his partner Arbel Yehud and his family.
“We must stop the fighting and bring everyone home first of all.”
Romi Gonen
Romi was captured from the Nova festival and released on January 19. This is what she shared on her Instagram stories:
“My heart breaks this morning. I will never forget the booms in captivity when the deal was blown up and I understood that I won’t be home soon. I’m begging the people of Israel, we have to keep fighting for them. The Israeli government — get them out of there! This is the most urgent thing right night! They are out of time!”
Liri Albag
Liri was captured from her base in Nir Oz and released on January 25. This is what she shared on Instagram stories:
“What about those left behind? They have once again been forgotten. Once again, their fate is a game. Once again we are risking their lives instead of saving them. Once again their hopes have been erased. Once again their lives became a game piece, instead of something to be protected at all cost. They are fighting to survive, and for too long. I don’t know if they will make it through!!! I am writing as someone who was there. As someone who knew them. Who heard their voices, looked into their eyes, understood exactly the meaning of being left behind. We cannot continue on while they rot there in that hell. There are 59 hostages!! This isn’t a game!!!!”
Naama Levy
Naama was captured from her base in Nir Oz and released on January 25. This is what she shared on Instagram stories:
“The heart breaks this morning. They have awoken to a morning of their nightmare starting over, the existential dread at every given moment, waking up to explosions, fear, terror, helplessness and a disappointment that’s incomparable to anything. Again they have been abandoned. Their lives are put in danger and they are not being rescued out of there. We have to do everything to get them out now. They are what matters most.”
Emily Damari
Emily was kidnapped from her home in Kfar Aza and released on January 19. She shared the following on her Instagram stories:
“There are so many things in my head and I don’t know how to let out this grief, but my heart is mostly broken, shattered, let down. Gali, Zivi and the other hostages, we will keep fighting for you relentlessly and do everything to get you back home to us.”
Karina Ariev
Karina was captured from her base in Nir Oz and released on January 25. This is what she shared on Instagram stories:
“I woke up to a difficult morning. A feeling of helplessness, fear and pain. I don’t know what the right thing to do is, but I know with a certainty that the screams of my brothers still in that hell are ringing in my ears. I see in front of my eyes their frightened faces and the helplessness in their eyes. I feel that I’m still there, my heart broken and shattered. Please don’t forget them. Pray for their safety and for their return. Pray for the well-being of the soldiers fighting. May better days come, amen.”
Omer Wenkert
Omer was captured from the Nova festival, where his childhood friend Kim Damti was murdered. He was released on February 22. He posted the following on his Instagram:
“Tonight, a very dangerous move was made for us, the hostages. The return to fighting? Have you heard a word of what those of us who have returned have told you? Do you see us?! This dangerous decision without any idea about how this move affects those of us still there? Now, especially, when I’m back home, when I’m not there, when that chapter is over for me, the feeling that we are being abandoned is the strongest I’ve ever experienced. And I say ‘we’ because they are me and I am them. I’m still there! Until the last of the hostages [come back] I’m still there! I demand! The hostages first. I demand! Bring us all back home. I will not give up, not for one moment until we are all back in the light.”
Eliya Cohen
Eliya was kidnapped from the Nova festival and released on February 22. This is what he shared on Instagram:
“From the moment the ceasefire was over, I found myself pacing for hours, unable to sit down. It’s simply incomprehensible, I have no words to describe our country’s complete lack of understanding about what happens 50 meters underground, and if we do understand it, what is this neglect and this disregard for the value of human life? How can we continue fighting after everything the former hostages have shared with you??? This knowledge — that the promises and the threats we heard from the terrorists so many times are about to come true — it’s tearing me up from the inside. My country needs to know that a short time ago, it seems like last night, my brother, Alon Ohel, whose fate was tied in mine, shackled in a bicycle lock with shackles on his feet, eating one probably moldy pita a day and two tablespoons of lima beans. I’m not sure he’ll get to shower, probably not brush his teeth, because they took every hygiene product from him. You, the decision makers, are responsible for his suffering. Alon’s tears, the pain he’s going through, is on your hands. You are endangering the lives of the hostages without even thinking. Stop this while you still can. Bring all the hostages home — it’s not a slogan, it’s not a sticker that we glue everywhere. It has to happen now.”
Shir Siegel, daughter of Keith Siegel
Keith Siegel, an American citizen, was captured from his home in Kfar Aza. His wife, Aviva, was taken with him. She was released in the first ceasefire deal in 2023. He was released on February 1. His daughter posted this message on her Instagram:
“My father counted five days from the day the terrorists told him my mother was returned home as part of a deal with Israel. Five days of no explosions, five days of rest from the endless fear of being killed by the next bombing, of bigger meals, of ‘calm terrorists,’ of air without the smell of smoke, and of a tangible hope that in a moment he too will be going home.”
“The terrorists told my father that he too will go home as part of that same deal. They told him he was part of the older hostages and therefore, just a couple of days after my mother, he too will get to return to Israel, to finally come home after 53 days in hell. On December 1, five long days after he was cruelly separated from my mother, as they show him again and again her release on TV, the ceasefire deal blew up. Suddenly, there was the crazy din of fighter jets, of missile fire, and bombs falling all around and really close to the abandoned apartment where my dad was held alone, locked in a room with no possibility to defend himself.
“Terrorists that at once become tense and violent. Loneliness and fear. My dad stayed there alone in that small room and felt that this was it, he won’t come home alive. On that same day, one of the terrorists came to him with a weapon, and as my dad lay on the floor on a smelly thin mattress, started hitting him. The terrorist was angry and took it all out on my dad. He kicked him forcefully in the ribs, spit on him as my dad curled up in pain, and cursed him as no one had ever cursed him. My dad stayed completely alone, after cruelly being parted from my mother and another female hostage that was with him.
“From the day that the deal blew up and with it my father’s hope, 15 months went by until they came to tell him that a deal was once again signed and that he’s coming home. 15 months of praying that the approaching explosions won’t kill him. Of violent angry tense terrorists with weapons. Of little food that led to malnourishment,. Of terrible sanitary conditions. Of thoughts and worries for my mom and my family’s well-being. Of completely being disconnected from news of the outside world, of fear and anxiety. Today a ceasefire deal blew up. The one we all waited for, that thousands of soldiers fought for so we could bring back all the hostages home. That hundreds of soldiers sacrificed their lives and soul for so that it finally could some and bring with it our brothers and sisters home. Today 59 beloved people are in that terrible state of uncertainly, hopelessness and the fear of death again, in inhuman conditions. We have to do everything to bring them back. All of them. We can’t give up on a single one. We have to pay the price, even the most painful one, to ensure that ‘never again’ happens now.”
