Former hostage reflects on life post-captivity, one year after her release

November 28 will mark one year since Gabriela Leimberg, her 17-year-old daughter Mia, and her sister Clara Marman were released home after two months of Hamas captivity in Gaza.

At the time, they left behind Gabriela and Clara’s brother Fernando Marman, and Luis Har, Clara’s partner, to remain in the uncertainty of Hamas captivity.

“[Hamas] told us we were all on the list [to be released], and then that it was just going to be the three of us,” Leimberg told The Times of Israel. “It was a terrible fracture, leaving Fernando and Luis, just splitting up and hoping that the releases would continue.”

All five had been abducted on October 7 by Hamas terrorists from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, along with Mia’s dog, a Shih Tzu named Bella, hidden in her pajamas. The family had been celebrating the Simchat Torah holiday weekend together at Clara’s Nir Yitzhak home.

More than two months later, on February 12, to the family’s great joy, Fernando and Luis were rescued by IDF forces and brought home to Israel.

When the brief truce ended on November 30, leaving Fernando and Luis behind in Gaza, it had marked the beginning of an even more difficult period than captivity, said Leimberg. “Knowing that you have loved ones in Gaza is harder than being a captive,” she said.

During those first 53 days of captivity, all five members of the family were kept captive together.

Leimberg said they had seen some television footage and knew about the struggle to bring the hostages home, as well as the truce that began toward the end of November.

It was only during the first days of the temporary ceasefire, which lasted from November 24 to November 30, that Leimberg and her family saw that older women, mothers, and children were being released, but no men.

“Luis had just turned 70,” said Leimberg of her sister’s partner, “so we assumed that he was the oldest captive and that Mia,” her 17-year-old daughter, “was for sure the youngest.”

They were stunned to learn that there were older hostages, along with children, toddlers and babies.

“Every night we would go to sleep and not know if we would be freed, and then we would understand that it wasn’t our turn,” she said. “And then the ceasefire [appeared to have] ended, and we didn’t know if it would happen at all.”

The initial four-day truce between Israel and Hamas was extended on November 27 for two days, with a final one-day extension through November 30.

Leimberg, her daughter, and her sister were released on November 28.

Leimberg, a social psychologist who lives in Jerusalem and has worked with adults with special needs for many years, hasn’t returned to work yet. She sticks to her small bubble of family and friends in the aftermath of the October 7 attack and captivity.

Her family recently moved within Jerusalem, and for now, she is focused on her rehabilitation and that of her family.

“I never imagined that at my age, at 60, I would experience this kind of trauma,” she said.

Mia graduated high school in June and is carrying on with her life, said her mother, including making plans to enlist in the army later this year.

But the elder Leimberg is taking it more slowly.

“I have moments when I’d like to have my old life again and get up in the morning and go to work, but for now my life revolves around our rehabilitation,” she said.

“I was in captivity and my husband was alone,” said Leimberg. “Clara was in Gaza and her daughters were back in Israel. We knew we were alive but our families did not. They didn’t know what had happened to us, and the disaster that a family goes through is hard to grasp.”

Now, one year later, this Argentinian family that has always loved to spend time together still gathers, but it’s not the same.

Leimberg and her extended family always got together at Nir Yitzhak, the kibbutz where Clara lived, where they celebrated birthdays and holidays with Argentinian barbecue and the other foods they loved.

Five residents were killed on Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on October 7 and eight were presumed hostage. The five members of the Marman-Leimberg family came home, while three Nir Yitzhak kibbutz members were later discovered to have been killed on October 7, their bodies taken captive to Gaza.

The bodies of two men, Lior Rudaeff and Tal Haimi, are still held in Gaza, while Oren Goldin’s body was recovered on July 24 by IDF troops and brought to Israel for burial.

“Clara isn’t back home at Nir Yitzhak yet. We meet, but when we do we sometimes have to stop ourselves because a lot of memories crop up,” said Leimberg. “We can share, and that’s part of who we are now.”

She prefers not to talk at length about the conditions in which they were kept during captivity.

“It’s about the absence of your freedom, that you can’t make any decision for yourself, and the threat that at any moment your life could end,” she said. “It’s hell, and it was our great luck that we returned home.”

With 101 hostages still held captive in Gaza, Leimberg tries each week to attend the Saturday night hostage rally held in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, even though she lives in Jerusalem.

“I feel like that’s where I need to be,” she said. “I’m a mom, and I was a mother in captivity, and as a woman and a mother, I want to be with the other mothers.”

Leimberg said she surrounds herself in a bubble of protection, with the love of her family and friends and the extended embrace of the Israeli nation.

“Our return is only because of our nation and the army and the soldiers and the security forces,” said Leimberg. “My personal story includes a successful rescue mission, but during that temporary ceasefire, 105 hostages came back and it’s more than from any military mission. That’s what I expect now: all the remaining hostages to come back at one time.”

Over the last few days, Leimberg said she’s found herself looking at a photo that she’s now using as her WhatsApp profile picture.

In the photo, (published at the top of this article,) she is standing with her brother Fernando at a recent hostage rally, with a sea of people behind them.

“That holds meaning for us,” she said. “One of the things I thought about in captivity was that we were coming home because of our nation and their struggle for us. That love envelopes me even now. I want to continue believing in that.”