Freed hostage tells Tel Aviv rally: I wouldn’t be here without you

By Canaan Lidor 2 December 2023, 8:41 pm

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Canaan Lidor is a former Jewish World reporter at The Times of Israel

Relatives and friends of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas terrorist group call for their release, in Hostages Square at the Museum of Art in Tel Aviv, Saturday Dec. 2, 2023. (AP/Ariel Schalit))

Yelena Trufanova, who was released from Hamas captivity last week, tells a rally at Tel Aviv’s so-called Hostages Square that “if not for all of you, I would not be here.”

Speaking in Hebrew and Russian, she calls for the release of her son Alexander Trufanov and the rest of the hostages.

She leads the rally of some 10,000 in chants of “now, now, now.”

Also at the rally, Hadas Calderon shares the joy of reunification with her two children and the painful absence of their father, Ofer, who is still presumed to be held hostage in Gaza.

“Whem Sahar and Erez saw me, they told me: ‘Mom, you’re alive.’ Because such is the uncertainty of the people held hostage,” says Calderon, whose daughter Sahar, 16, and son Erez, 12, were released on November 28.

But their father, Ofer, “is still experiencing this darkness. A wonderful man of the great outdoors. He must be free now, all of our hostages must be released. There is no price for their freedom,” says Calderon, prompting the crowd to chant “all of them right now.”