When Yona Schnitzer, a Marketing writer of Tel Aviv, participated in the traditional meal of Seder Pasqua, said a special prayer for the return of all the hostages still held by Palestinian militants in Gaza.
He had thought that their freedom would be assured by Easter of 2025, but this did not happen.
“It has become so normalized that there are hostages in Gaza,” said Schnitzer, 36 years old. “It’s surreal and heartbreaking.”
Saturday evening, the Israelis will observe the beginning of the Jewish Easter, the Jewish Festival of Liberty, for the second time from 7 October 2023 led by Hamas, who lit the war in Gaza. The holiday is usually a celebration of the biblical history of the ancient Israelites freed from slavery in Egypt, with families gathering to tell that story, sing songs and eat special foods.
But for many Israelis, the continuous captivity of the hostages has difficulty feeling the joy of the holiday.
“We will score the holidays. We will not be celebrated,” said Orly Gavishi-Sotto, 47 years old, a college administrator from the north of Israel. “We can only celebrate when all the hostages are at home.”
Mrs. Gavishi-Sotto said that her family would put an empty chair at the Seder table, symbolizing the hostages of Gaza who cannot be with their families.
The Israeli government claimed to believe that 24 of the 59 hostages remained still alive.
In January, the Israeli and Hamas negotiators agreed on a ceased the fire that should have led to freedom of the rest of the hostages. Thirty living hostages and the bodies of eight other were returned during the initial six weeks of the agreement, but Israel resumed the attacks in Gaza on March 18 after the two sides were unable to agree on an extension of the truce.
Since then, the Israeli military have embarked on a large bombing campaign and seized multiple territory in Gaza in what officials said it was an offer to force Hamas to release more hostages.
But the supporters of the hostages fear that the latter offensive is endangering the prisoners. More than three dozens have been killed in captivity since the beginning of the war, both by their kidnappers and from Israeli fire, according to Israeli officials, forensic relationships and military investigations.
About 1,200 people were killed in the attack of October 2023 and tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed in the war that followed.
Dani Miran, 80 years old, whose son Omri Miran is a hostage to Gaza, he said he was planning a simple siter with his family and trying to reassure his grandchildren that their father would return home.
Omri Miran, now 48 years old, was taken by the Palestinian militants on October 7, 2023, by Kibbutz Nahal Oz near the Israeli border with Gaza. Him; his wife Lishay; And their two daughters, Roni and Alma, were initially kept under shooting, according to family members, but only he was forced to Gaza.
“Omri has been in the tunnels for over a year and a half,” said Miran. “I don’t know what his mental state is. I can only hope that he is strong enough to bear this tragedy.”