Grandfather of two children released from Gaza: ‘We thought we would lose our minds’

DEAD SEA, Israel — For the residents of Kibbutz Be’eri, the days since the hostage release agreement was reached with Hamas have been a time of intensely contrasting emotions, from trepidation to despair, then joy — and never-ending anxiety.

On Saturday night, 12 hostages, including eight children, who were abducted on October 7 by Hamas from Be’eri were returned to Israel after an agonizing wait in which the terror group delayed their release for hours and threatened to tear up the entire agreement.

Hananel Besorai, the 89-year-old grandfather of freed hostages Alma and Noam Or, said the delay was unbearable, but that his anguish ended when he saw his grandchildren brought back into Israel.

“We were so anxious over what was happening with them. They [Hamas] were delaying and delaying, and until the door opened and we saw them come out, we thought we would lose our minds,” Besorai recalled, speaking from the David Hotel in Ein Boqek by the Dead Sea where most of Be’eri’s residents are currently living.

“But we are strong, and we waited to the last moment and then it was a totally different world and everything was okay. We went from despair to hope,” said Besorai.

Alma, 13, and Noam, 17, were taken hostage with their father Dror, but their mother Yonat was murdered by Hamas terrorists and Dror remains captive in Gaza.

Some 100 people were killed at Kibbutz Be’eri, almost 10 percent of its population, and another 50 taken hostage on October 7.

Besorai said he will go to visit both his grandchildren in Tel Aviv on Monday and was animated and visibly excited at the thought of seeing them once again.

He said they need support and help to heal mentally after experiencing “the hell” of captivity in Gaza.

And he added that on Tuesday they will go to Palmachim to visit the grave of their mother, his daughter Yonat Or.

“This is something we need to do together,” he said.

Despite the circumstances, Besorai was cheerful, even jovial, making jokes and with a smile frequently on his face.

But, he said, this was in part a show, hiding his deep pain over the events of October 7 and the following weeks.

“I am happy on the outside and I am hurting on the inside. I am in pain over my daughter and the massacre the enemy did in Be’eri, [killing people] like sheep to the slaughter,” he said.

A cracked half-full cup

Despite the harrowing circumstances of some of the Be’eri residents who have been forced to leave their once idyllic home, the mood in the hotel where they are now living does not reflect the travesty of what happened.

Dozens of children charge around the lobby area which has seemingly become a substitute for the open spaces of the kibbutz, clambering on the couches and having pillow fights in the lounge.

Two young girls do cartwheels in front of the hotel bar, and a group of boys sit and play video games on smartphones, searching around for anyone with a charger when their batteries run low.

And parents sit, talk, and drink, while minding their young babies and children, almost as if they were on vacation.

But there is still a great deal of grief.

Like Besorai, Michal Cohen, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri for over half a century, had loved ones taken hostage on October 7, but for her, the nightmare is still ongoing as her daughter, Raz Ben-Ami, is yet to be released.

Raz and her husband Ohad were both taken hostage by Hamas, and Cohen is desperate for them to be released.

She says she is angry with the government and the IDF “for having abandoned us,” angry with Hamas for the brutal slaughter they did to us, and “angry with the world,” which she says is doing nothing for her daughter, and every other hostage.

“I’m angry that they are not bringing my daughter back now. They need to bring her back right now,” she says.

But at the same time, Cohen smiles with her friends and another daughter while eating lunch in the hotel dining hall, makes the hotel staff laugh, and gets hugs from some of them who have taken her into their hearts.

Cohen, 75, said that Raz had surgery on her back recently which was not totally successful and that she needs medication for her condition. The family figured out how to bring that medication to the Red Cross for the international organization to transfer it to Raz, but the Red Cross did not get the medicine delivered, said Cohen.

Cohen has added the Red Cross to her list of organizations she is furious with.

“Raz is a quiet person, sensitive, she has a beautiful soul. All she likes to do is create art and tend to her plants at home,” said Cohen with tears gathering in the corner of her eyes as she recalled her daughter.

“Be’eri was a paradise, it was such a wonderful place to live… I don’t want to think about the day she comes out, while her husband will stay behind, and she will be told her home has been destroyed,” she continued, referring to the fact that, even if Hamas releases her, the terror group is not releasing men at present (aside from the surprise release of Russian-Israeli Roni Krivoi).

“It’s unthinkable. You could make the worst horror film and not make something so terrible as this,” said Cohen.

Miri Gad Messika, another resident of Be’eri who is acting as a communications coordinator for the kibbutz, said that many of the residents were extremely angry over Hamas’s violation of the hostage release agreement, having separated 13-year-old Hila Rotem from her mother Raaya, and claiming they do not know where she is.

Gad Messika called this claim is “lies” and said the community was “outraged by the ongoing abuse by Hamas” of these hostages and their families.

“There are no words to describe this evil… they have already hollowed out these people, and now are continuing to abuse them.”

Aya Meydan, another Be’eri resident, who was rescued from the kibbutz by Bedouin workers from nearby Rahat, said that the entire community was suffering and in pain, for those who had been murdered and those who are being held in captivity in Gaza.

“It is a very strong and united community, we have a strong communal spirit, and so every one of us feels like someone very close to them has been taken away,” she said.

Meydan is close friends with Adi Shoham who was released from Gaza on Saturday, together with her children Yahel Neri, 3, and Naveh, 8, and said that although she was overjoyed for the release of her friend and her children, the emotions were very much mixed because of those still held hostage.

“I go from despair to hope,” she said, echoing Besorai’s sentiments.

“What joy it was when I saw Adi was released with her children, it restores our hope to see them and that they look like they’re okay. Hope sometimes disappears amid all this, and having them back restores it a bit,” she continued.

“Everyone is so anxious and on edge for those who haven’t come back yet, we have no sense of peace. They [Hamas] will drag this out longer and longer, they will twist the knife, until we give them more and more and more,” said Meydan. “They love that this is so difficult for us and that we are in such pain.”