by Sofia Tranchina
While international pressure for a cease-fire ignites spirits and inflames the media, 134 wounds remain open and bleeding in the heart of Israel: they are the hostages still in captivitykidnapped not only by Hamas but also by some Gazan civilians who “seized the opportunity” to take part in the terrorist activity.
134 peoplewith their stories, their dreams, their personalities, dragged into the nightmare of illegal and unjustified imprisonment, without medicines, without certainties, and without rights.
Will they ever return to their homes? Will they hug their loved ones again? Which of them is still alive? It is not known: faithful to his strategy of terror, Hamas has occurred several times refused to hand over the census to Israel of the hostages held.
As he approaches the sixth month of the war and the media world is already forgetting the terrified scream of Noa Argamani, the red hair of the very young Bibas brothers, and the stories of the other hostages, the desperation of the families is becoming increasingly bleak.
In the chaos of war, rare, disturbing news about the fate of the hostages emerges from time to time.
Nineteen-year-old Liri Elbag, the youngest of the hostages
«We hear a million and one pieces of news: yes to an agreement, no to the agreement, yes to US support, no to US support. Enough: now there is a deal on the table – turn the whole world upside down and make sure my daughter comes home», he vents Shira Elbag, the mother of young Liri. 18 years old at the time of the attack, 19 years old now, Liri Elbag And the youngest girl still in the hands of Hamas.
At 6.30 in the morning Black Saturday, Liri warned her mother that she had managed to take refuge in a shelter from the dense sequence of rockets. It was the last time the two spoke to each other.
51 days later the first news arrived: the IDF has identified Liri’s DNA in one children’s room belonging to a Palestinian family (pictured on the right).
“When I saw the photo of the room, at first I was relieved: it was a children’s room,” says the mother. «But I soon realized that Liri she had been kidnapped by a family, not by Hamas militants. It’s like I’m keeping someone else’s child locked in my house. What will they have told their children?”.
With the hostage exchange in November, testimonies emerged of how the girl had been held for a long period as a house slaveforced to clean the family’s bathrooms and cook food for them that she herself was not allowed to eat.
The latest news arrived 112 days ago: Liri was taken 40 meters underground, where she lives in terrible conditions, in great humidity, without air, without light, without bathrooms and without water. She drinks sea water and eats little, occasionally.
Mother Shira reminds the negotiators of the hostage agreement: «it will be in a week half a year of imprisonment. My daughter is experiencing horrors, a world of nightmares. Time matters and, for the hostages, time has already run out.”
The father, Eli Elbag, offended by the words of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – who declared that he believed that the release of the hostages was not “the most important objective of the war” – replies: “imagine that these are your children, imagine of knowing they are in the hands of bad people. What would you do?”.
Keeping up the pressure on the government, the Families Forum continues to organize the weekly demonstrations, cwhich requires a diplomatic effort that places the release of the hostages among the nation’s absolute priorities.
