Hostage activist vows to keep fighting for deal after cousin murdered in captivity
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Murdered hostage Carmel Gat’s cousin, Gil Dickmann, a leading voice among the hostage families fighting for a hostage deal, says Monday in a Hostages Forum press conference ahead of his cousin’s funeral at Kibbutz Be’eri that he is still getting used to the fact that he’s no longer a hostage family member, but will continue fighting for the remaining 101 hostages.
“This is still my fight because it’s the fight of all Israelis,” says Dickmann. “It’s the price we will pay as Israelis if we don’t get them home.”
Gat, 40, was one of six hostages executed by Hamas at the end of last week, after nearly 11 months in captivity in Gaza. The bodies of the six hostages were recovered by the IDF and brought home to be buried in Israel.
“It’s the most tragic nightmare that we could have dreamed of,” says Dickmann. “We were anxiously awaiting the deal that could bring Carmel back.”
Gat was taken captive on October 7 by Hamas terrorists from her parents’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri. Her brother, sister-in-law, and 3-and-a-half-year-old niece were also captured, although her brother and niece managed to escape their captors. Gat’s sister-in-law, Yarden Roman-Gat, was released after 54 days of captivity. The family believed Carmel Gat would be released on the eighth day of the November ceasefire, but the deal collapsed as Israel and Hamas returned to fighting.
The Gat family had information throughout that Carmel was alive, receiving signs of life a few weeks before she was executed by Hamas captors, says Dickmann.
“We’ve been trying our best to tell everyone all over the world that the lives of the hostages are in great danger because they’re in the hands of a terror organization,” says Dickmann. “Sometimes people imagine that Hamas is a regular state, a regular organization.”
Dickmann says he wants to believe that his country and government believe in saving lives, although it’s become clear to him over the course of the last nearly 11 months that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t touched by any of the hostages and thinks only in terms of politics.
“Most ministers don’t understand that they voted for the execution of the hostages,” says Dickmann, referring to the recent cabinet decision to continue insisting on keeping control of the Philadelphi Corridor in Gaza, a sticking point in hostage deal negotiations. “People are not something you can just spare or trade for other goals and reasons,” he says. “It’s horrible we had to pay the price with Carmel’s life, but I really hope that this is a turning point that the Israeli public can’t have this anymore and that the Israeli government will understand that they have to sign this deal immediately.”
Dickmann says the latest rounds of protests throughout the country on Sunday night and Monday, along with the general strike, show, he says, that most Israelis want a hostage deal.
“I guess we had to lose our most precious things for it to become time for [a general strike],” he says. “There are mixed feelings — everyone is finally coming out [to protest], but it’s too late for Carmel and all the hostages we didn’t save. If we don’t do it ourselves, no one is going to do it for us.”
