Relatives of 6 slain hostages say countless world figures failed them, urge action
In letter published by Time, families lament that despite months of advocacy, people of power and influence made promises but didn’t deliver, say Israel skipped deal opportunities
Relatives of the six Israeli hostages executed by their Gaza terrorist captors last month as the military closed in on their location, penned a letter published in Time magazine Wednesday in which they lamented that global figures had let them down despite months of advocacy and revealed new details on the horrors their loved ones suffered in captivity.
The letter was written by the father of Carmel Gat and the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, and Alexander Lobanov, plus the latter’s wife. The bodies of all six abductees were located by IDF troops and brought to Israel two days after their murders on August 29.
The families said they were issuing a “clarion call,” that the time to save the 101 hostages still in captivity “is running out.”
“Now is the time for decisive, deliberate, meaningful action,” they wrote.
The hostages were among 251 people abducted from Israel on October 7 in a massive cross-border attack on southern Israel led by the Palestinian terror group Hamas that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
The families began by revealing previously unaired details about the “miserable conditions” the six captives were held in and the extent of starvation they endured while kept in a narrow, low tunnel, deprived of fresh air, adequate sanitation and food.
During his time in captivity, Lobanov’s weight dropped from 86 kilograms (190 pounds) to 60 (132 pounds). Goldberg-Polin, who was around 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall, had weighed just 52 kilograms when he was murdered, they said.
The body of Eden Yerushalmi, who was 1.65 meters (5 foot 5) tall, weighed just 36 kilos (79 pounds).
The families said Israeli leaders “had opportunities” to negotiate a ceasefire deal that would free their loved ones and other hostages but did not, “for calculations they deemed strategic.”
“These choices will be the eternal legacy of these men,” they wrote of the government that has faced months of mass protests calling on it to close a deal with Hamas.
“It was Hamas that took our loved ones, tortured them, and pulled the triggers that murdered them,” they said. “But many others failed to save them.”
“But there are so many other people who could have done so much more to save them,” they added. “For 328 days, many of us traveled the world and met politicians, diplomats, business titans, celebrities — people with power. They made promises, nodded, held our hands, cried with us, hugged us tightly… and then failed to deliver results.”
“Celebrities met us in secluded rooms but asked that we never acknowledge publicly that they did so; they feared losing followers.”
Leaders of humanitarian aid organizations, including the International Red Cross and the World Health Organization, told the families that they wanted to help “but could not figure out how,” while “religious leaders were publicly silent,” they continued.
“Where is the global outcry calling for their release?” they said. “Where is the condemnation from the religious and spiritual leaders of the five faiths of the hostages still being held? ”
“Nefarious actors the world over are watching, learning, and planning,” they warned, with implications for global security beyond Israel and Gaza.
“Humanity’s future is at stake. It’s time to use the power you have and do better,” the families urged, ending the letter with an appeal to “Take action now to bring home their 101 brothers and sisters still in Gaza. As Rabbi Hillel famously asked in ancient Jewish law, ‘If not now, WHEN?’”
The letter was published as the ongoing war in Gaza sparked by the Hamas attack approaches its grim first anniversary.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
