As Israelis welcome home hostages freed as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal, their long-awaited release has reinvigorated a wrenching debate over the nation’s ethos of not leaving people behind. Many say that has been broken, that their leaders have betrayed a trust by letting the hostages languish for so long.
“The feeling that we belong not just to one big Jewish and Israeli family, but a group that is constantly under threat runs deep in our consciousness,” says Oz Almog, a professor. “This is an identity that also comes with … a mutual promise that we won’t abandon one another.”
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As Israelis celebrate the return of hostages held in Gaza, they are also anguished over the long time it took to bring them home. A nagging question for many is whether a social contract of mutual responsibility has been broken.
Yair Brill, who grew up on Kibbutz Be’eri, where 96 of its people were killed and 26 taken hostage Oct. 7, 2023, openly questions if that “beautiful sentiment” still exists.
“Those government ministers who resigned over the [ceasefire] deal … did not resign because Jews were abandoned in captivity. It’s because the deal would mean Israel won’t be allowed to continue to control Gaza,” he says at a protest.
“I don’t feel there is a system that protects me. … But I don’t have much of an option other than to join the struggle of those who still think we are beholden to one another.”
Israelis held their collective breath as a white van sped into a Gaza City square crammed with masked Hamas fighters and Palestinian civilians chanting “God is great” in Arabic.
Inside that van late Sunday afternoon were three young women who had vanished from public sight 471 days earlier, when they were violently captured during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on Israel. In all that time, almost no information had come out about them.
Now Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher were becoming the first Israeli hostages to be released as part of a new ceasefire deal. Within seconds of the van door opening, all three made the harrowing passage directly into an awaiting Red Cross SUV.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused on
As Israelis celebrate the return of hostages held in Gaza, they are also anguished over the long time it took to bring them home. A nagging question for many is whether a social contract of mutual responsibility has been broken.
“They are walking on their own two feet!” exclaimed an Israeli news anchor as cheers rang out and tears of joy and relief were shed around the country. One watch party was at the Tel Aviv square that has been ground zero for the struggle to bring all the original 251 hostages home.
Of the remaining 94 hostages, 37 are thought to have been killed before being dragged into Gaza or while in captivity.
“I survived!” an exuberant Ms. Damari shouted at cameras, defiantly holding up her bandaged hand, having lost two fingers when she was shot and seized from her kibbutz home along the Gaza border.
“Unspoken social contract”
Yet as Israelis welcome home their collective banot – Hebrew for daughters, as they are often referred to in the Israeli media – the long-awaited release has reinvigorated a wrenching emotional debate over the nation’s ethos of not leaving people behind.
Many say that has now been broken, that the country’s leaders have betrayed a trust by letting the hostages languish for this long. Four more women are to be released Saturday.
“The feeling that we belong not just to one big Jewish and Israeli family, but a group that is constantly under threat runs deep in our consciousness,” says Oz Almog, a sociology professor at Haifa University. “This is an identity that also comes with a strong sense of responsibility,” he notes, part of the “unspoken social contract” and solidarity necessary to live in a dangerous region.
Israel’s mandatory military conscription is the prime example of not only a legal duty, he says, but also a “mutual promise that we won’t abandon one another,” that “each person is expected to contribute to the greater good.”
If all the hostages do not return home, Professor Almog says, “It will be a disaster, a cultural collapse.”
Yair Brill, who grew up on Kibbutz Be’eri, where 96 of its people were killed and 26 taken hostage, openly questions if such a communal ethos of mutual responsibility still exists.
“I think it’s a beautiful sentiment,” says Mr. Brill. “But I don’t know how much it has actually stuck.
“I think there are people who still feel it – just look around at this protest,” he says, waving a hand toward about 200 people gathered Tuesday evening next to the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, demanding a full hostage release.
“I’m here so I won’t feel alone”
The current ceasefire is a precarious one, a phased deal that many fear will collapse. Its cost is steep and lopsided: the exchange of more than 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners, including those convicted of killing Israelis, for the hostages.
Courtesy of Israel Defense Forces/Reuters
“In some ways we are a country that has been orphaned; we don’t have the feeling that someone looks out for us. Our prime minister is the same prime minister that even before Oct. 7 had shown us he is not the leader of all its citizens,” says Mr. Brill.
“Those government ministers who resigned over the deal just now did not resign because Jews were abandoned in captivity. It’s because the deal would mean Israel won’t be allowed to continue to control Gaza.
“I don’t feel there is a system that protects me. It’s very distressing. But I don’t have much of an option other than to join the struggle of those who still think we are beholden to one another. I’m here so I won’t feel alone.”
Next to him are roaring chants to the beat of pounding drums: “We will bring them back,” “We will not give up,” and “Everyone, now!”
The Oct. 7 attack, the most catastrophic military and intelligence failure in Israel’s history, was unlike anything Israelis had ever suffered: the massacre of 1,200 people in a single day, most of them civilians, and a mass hostage-taking, including of women, children, and older people.
That so many hostages are still in Gaza remains a source of deep distress. Many Israelis see themselves in a state of continued trauma, unable to heal or to begin to take stock of that day and the ensuing war in Gaza and the many lives it has claimed as long as the hostages languish there.
The hostages’ faces are ubiquitous, their images hung off bridges, along major intersections, and in the windows of restaurants and bars. Their names are recited daily, their individual stories shared.
But their conditions remain unknown, save for the occasional Hamas propaganda video in which they appear pale, with haunted eyes, like recent images of soldier Liri Elbag, seized with four other young women lookouts at an army base along the Gaza border.
Anger at Prime Minister Netanyahu
At the Tel Aviv demonstration Tuesday evening is Ifat Kalderone, a fixture of the hostage movement. She is arranging tea candles into a message beseeching U.S. President Donald Trump to enforce the ceasefire.
Her cousin is Ofer Kalderone, a father of four who was captured from his kibbutz with two of his children. His then-16-year-old daughter, Sahar, was briefly reunited with him in the tunnels before being released Nov. 27, 2023. She hardly recognized him, his hair long, spirit dimmed, and body emaciated.
He’s one of the hostages slated for release in the deal’s first phase.
“I always say I am fighting for all of them, even if Ofer comes back home. I will still be here because we have the others to bring back. There is no future to Israel if they don’t all come back home,” she says, echoing a common refrain.
“From the moment that I was born, I knew that if I was kidnapped – and of course we never imagined the events of the seventh of October – I knew the government will do everything to bring me or you back home.”
The specter of hostage-taking is not new in Israel, although it has mostly been confined to soldiers. It strikes at the heart of Israeli feelings of vulnerability.
Ms. Kalderone blames Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for torpedoing previous ceasefire deals, alleging that he preferred saving his ruling coalition over rescuing his people, including some executed or killed in captivity who could have been saved as part of a deal.
She contrasts that attitude with that of the Israeli public: “We take care of each other.”
Nodding toward the protesters, she says, “They’re not even the family of hostages, but they do care about the hostages and they’ve been fighting with me for such a long time, for 15 months. Even if it’s raining or it’s cold, in the summer heat, they are here, every night, standing with me,” she says. “They know how important it is to bring them back.”
Interviewed for a podcast, “The State of Tel Aviv,” Yediot Aharonot columnist Nadav Eyal addressed Israel’s social contract.
It “is not an addiction to sentimentalism,” he said. “It is a clear-eyed, cold understanding of how the Middle East works and … how Israel’s society can regain its strength in the aftermath of such a trauma as Oct. 7.”
