‘A year is too long for a deal’: Hostage families, freed captives mark brief truce anniversary

Survivors of Hamas’s captivity and relatives of hostages still in Gaza gather at the Hostage Families Forum headquarters in Tel Aviv to mark a year since the weeklong ceasefire that saw Hamas release 105 women and children kidnapped on October 7, 2023, in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners.

As the auditorium fills up, a slideshow from last November of hostages reuniting with their families is projected on a large screen.

“A year is too long for a deal,” reads the slideshow.

Negotiators have so far failed to secure another truce-hostage deal. The Forum demands a deal that would release all remaining hostages at once, fearing a staggered-release agreement, as outlined in previous draft proposals, would collapse before all the captives are freed.

Gabriela Leimberg, who spent 53 days in Gaza, says she survived captivity by imagining being reunited with her family.

“Captivity is hell,” she says. “The only light is hope.”

“It’s hard for me to believe the hostages still have hope and that they can imagine their return,” she adds.

She recalls that her partner, Luis Har, and brother, Fernando Merman, were slated to be released days after she was.

“We left them with a heavy heart,” she says. “Over 70 days passed before they returned in a [rescue] operation.”

The deal, she says, brought back “105 living hostages — more than can be brought back in a rescue mission.”

Yifat Zailer, cousin of hostage Shiri Bibas, speaks about the pain of not knowing what happened to the Bibas family: her cousin Shiri, nephews Ariel, 5, and Kfir, 15 months old, and the boys’ father, Yarden.

The Bibas family, father Yarden, mother Shiri, then-baby Kfir and then-4-year-old Ariel, were taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 from Kibbutz Nir Oz. (Courtesy)

“Until we hear otherwise, they’re alive, as far as we are concerned,” she says. “That’s the least they deserve.”

Last November, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were slated for return the very day hostilities resumed.

“What would have happened if we had waited one more day?” Zailer asks in tears.

She recalls how “our heart burst with joy and panged with envy” watching the other hostages be reunited with their families.

“Only with a deal that brings back all the hostages can I know my family’s fate,” she says.

Later, in English, she addresses international media: “We need the international community’s help. We can’t do this alone.”

Also speaking at the event are: freed hostages Raz Ben Ami, whose husband Ohad Ben Ami is still captive, and Danielle Aloni, whose brother-in-law David Cunio is still captive along with his brother Ariel; as well as Michel Illouz, father of slain hostage Guy Illouz.