Marking 600 days since Oct. 7, ex-hostages recall those they left behind, demand ceasefire

Iair Horn, who was released from Hamas captivity in February as part of the latest Gaza ceasefire, says he is unsure if his younger brother Eitan Horn, who is still captive, is alive.

Speaking at the Hostages Square rally marking 600 days since the Hamas onslaught, Horn recounts the fear of instant death in captivity. “In the tunnels, you can’t know if a terrorist will get up one morning and just shoot you, or if the tunnel where you’re sleeping will be blown up because of a bomb,” he says.

During one Israeli air raid, he says his captors “grabbed us and we started running in a totally crooked tunnel, which could collapse at any moment, trying to escape the bombing and toxic fumes.”

“We run and run until Eitan sits, with all his 100 and something kilos… and tells me: ‘I’ve come this far. Leave me,” says Horn. “I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him, dragged as much as I could, until my strength ran out.”

Then, says Horn, he told his brother: “‘If you don’t start moving, we’ll both die here.'”

“So he got up,” says Horn. “Now I’m not there to drag him by the arm.”

“We were saved by luck, but the luck has run out,” he says. “Instead of luck, we need to sign off on an end to the war. Instead of luck, we need to bring back the 58 hostages, now — drag them out by the arm to a safe place back home.”

“We can’t sacrifice anymore — enough,” he says. “Enlisted soldiers giving their body and soul — I’d rather they be on vacation. Brave, experienced reservists — I’d rather they took their kids to kindergarten every morning.”

“So I address you, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” he says, as the crowd jeers the premier’s name. “You brought me back home. Do it again.”

Ohad Ben Ami, who was released along with Yair Horn, speaks about the five hostages with whom he was held in an underground tunnel — Yosef-Haim Ohana, Bar Kuperstein, Elkana Bohbot, Segev Kalfon and Maxim Herkin — who remain there, “in the same cold nights, the same daily fear.”

“Everyone is still alive — with the operative word being ‘still,'” says Ben Ami.

“In the latest videos [published by Hamas] I saw them, but not like I knew them,” says Ben Ami. “The fear I saw in their eyes doesn’t leave me. Their physical condition is awful, their mental condition is still more awful.”

In the tunnels, he says, “we lived off of scraps, physically and emotionally, and while I’m here talking to you, they’re still there, breathing, but barely,” he says.

“Don’t let them be forgotten,” he says. “Don’t let day 601 come as though nothing happened.”

As Ben Ami departs the stage, the crowd chants: “Hero!”