From Yahoo:
“Hostages in Israel: Families of loved ones taken by Hamas
share their horrific stories”
Amid the devastating war in Israel, relatives of hostages
have had to learn of their kidnappings through frantic, whispered phone calls,
rushed text messages and videos posted to social media. The stakes rose Monday
as Hamas threatened to start executing hostages if Israel bombs civilian
targets in Gaza. The exact number of people abducted remains unclear. Militants
have claimed more than 100, but an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said
Wednesday that 60 people had been abducted. These accounts of kidnappings are
based on interviews with the families and, in many cases, videos showing
apparent abductions. In some instances, groups of relatives disappeared at the
same time, and family members are left to wonder whether they are alive and
missing, among the hostages or dead.
Here are some of their stories:
Omer Shem Tov, 20
Omer Shem Tov was one of the thousands of young people in
attendance at a music festival in the Israeli desert when it was attacked by
Hamas militants in the early hours of Saturday morning. Hamas gunmen killed
more than 260 revelers at the Supernova festival, a techno music event held in
the the Negev region. Shem Tov was among the many believed to have been
abducted and taken into Gaza as prisoners. His family said he was last seen in
a hostage video on Saturday that appeared to show him with his hands bound
behind his back. His face was blurred, but family members said they recognized
him from his distinctive shorts. Shem Tov's brother said the family remained in
a state of shock. "Unbelievable, truly unbelievable," he told NBC
News' Raf Sanchez. "Like, why? Why does it have to be like this? Why does
it have to be us? "I just want him back. I don't want vengeance ... I just
wish (he) could be with us right now," he said.
Ron Sherman, 19
Israeli soldier Ron Sherman was shaken awake Saturday morning
by the deafening sound of missiles, bombs and gunfire all around him, his
mother, Maayan Sherman, said. Just one year into his mandatory service, Sherman
helped to deliver goods to the people of Gaza and was unarmed when his base was
attacked, his mother said. He scrambled to find safety and texted his mother
frightened and unsure what to do. “He said it sounded different from other
times they’ve had these attacks,” she said. “I didn’t believe him — I thought
it was a dream.” Her son, who has Argentine citizenship, called again moments
later and said he heard people speaking Arabic outside the room where he was
hiding. “I love you all. I’m done — they’re coming” Maayan Sherman remembers
her son saying. Four hours later, she received photos and video taken by Hamas
showing her son being taken hostage. “He looked very healthy and alive,” she
said. “We were so terrified, but we were relieved because he was alive and he
had a chance.”
Karina Ariev, 19
Sasha Ariev, 24, knew “something wasn’t right” when she got a
call on her cellphone at 6:30 a.m. Saturday. It was her little sister,
19-year-old Israel Defense Forces soldier Karina Ariev, who was hunkered down
in a bomb shelter near the Nahal Oz kibbutz in southern Israel. Hamas gunmen
had apparently raided the IDF base where she worked. Karina Ariev said she
feared for her life. Sasha Ariev later saw a video clip showing her
sister apparently being kidnapped. “We don’t know if she is alive,” she said in
an interview Wednesday. Sasha Ariev said that an Israeli military officer came
to her family’s home Sunday night and declared her sister was being held by
Hamas. “We want the Red Cross to go into Gaza and confirm whether there
are hostages, whether they’re alive, whether they need urgent medical
attention,” she said. Sasha Ariev said she feels “betrayed” by Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which was evidently caught off
guard by the unprecedented Hamas assault. “In a democracy, we choose our
leaders to secure us and to lead us, but they didn’t do that well, and this is
why we’re in this situation,” she said. Netanyahu has vowed to strike
back against Hamas fighters in Gaza, and Sasha Ariev said her “heart goes out
to Palestinian civilians” who will be caught in the conflict. “Hamas is a
terror organization,” she said. “We know there are Palestinian civilians who
are scared of Hamas, especially in Gaza. They are innocent people and they’ve
done nothing wrong.” Sasha Ariev said she is praying for her sister’s
safe return, but she knows that nothing will ever be the same. “After we
saw the video of Karina,” she said, “we felt that Hamas took part of her soul
that may never come back. We pray she will come home safe and sound, but she
won’t be the same person ever again. She will be traumatized. She will be
scarred."
Bar Kuperstein, 21
Bar Kuperstein’s mother received a text from her son around
6:30 a.m. Saturday saying he planned to pack up and leave the Supernova music
festival in the Israeli desert because it was under attack, his uncle Itzhak
Tabatchnik said. After spending hours scrolling through social media trying to
determine his location, the family found a video around 12:30 p.m. appearing to
show Kuperstein being held captive by militants, Tabatchnik said. The family
later learned from other people at the festival that Kuperstein waited to make
sure other attendees and staff members got to safety first, his uncle said. An
estimated 260 people were killed at the desert festival in the Negev region. “He
is a hero,” Tabatchnik said. “Bar and the entire population at the festival has
nothing to do with military conflict and the world should know about what
happened to them. They were totally innocent.” The eldest of five children, Bar
Kuperstein took it upon himself to look after his family when his dad was in a
car accident two years ago and could no longer walk, his uncle said. “He
functioned not only as a big brother, but, in a certain way, he took responsibility
of his entire family because of his father’s disability,” he added. It was that
instinct to protect that likely inspired Kuperstein to stay behind at the music
festival, where he was working Saturday morning, Tabatchnik said. “He has a
good heart and a good character,” Tabatchnik said.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23
Born in California and raised in Chicago, Hersh
Goldberg-Polin left his mother’s home in Jerusalem Friday night saying that he
planned to camp out with his best friend and would be home later in the
weekend. On Saturday morning, around 8:11 a.m, Rachel Goldberg received
texts from her son that she will never forget: “I love you” and “I’m sorry.”
She has not heard from Goldberg-Polin since. An avid traveler who
had been saving up for a big trip in December, Goldberg-Polin was among a group
of revelers at a music festival who hid in a bomb shelter when Hamas attacked.
Goldberg and other relatives have cobbled together information about what
happened that morning through eyewitnesses’ accounts and social media. She
believes her son survived being shot by tying a makeshift tourniquet to stop
the bleeding before being dragged off by Hamas as a hostage. Several friends
credited him with saving their lives, she said. “He is a smiley,
fun-loving guy and people of all ages gravitate towards him,” Goldberg said.
Celine Ben David Nagar, 32
Ido Nagar, 33, said his wife, Celine Ben David Nagar, was
driving south from their home in Holon, south of Tel Aviv, with two friends on
Saturday when she called him and said she was hearing rocket-warning sirens.
She said they would try to turn back to get to a shelter. But then she said
turning back may have been a mistake — that “soldiers are coming.” Later, her
car was found with its windows smashed and two bullet holes in the door, he
said. A small amount of blood was discovered outside the vehicle. “I’m assuming
that they were taken by Hamas,” Ido Nagar said. Since Saturday, Ido Nagar said
his family has been flooded with support from neighbors, with many dropping off
enough milk for the couple’s 6-month-old daughter, Ellie, to fill a whole
fridge. Ido Nagar is left with longing. “She’s the love of my life. She was
perfect,” he said. “We had such a perfect... we have such a perfect marriage.”
Yaffa Adar, 85
Relatives of Yaffa Adar, a grandmother abducted from her
kibbutz near Gaza on a golf cart, are pleading for her return, saying she’s
sick and in need of medicine. Her granddaughter, Adva Adar told Sky News that
Yaffa is gentle and funny and loves to cuddle. She is the backbone of a large
family in Israel, she added. “She liked to enjoy her life and she liked to help
us enjoy our life,” she said. Adva saw a now-viral video showing Hamas
militants kidnapping her grandmother and driving away in a golf cart. The
Associated Press reported she was captured from the Kfar Azza community and
enroute to the Gaza strip. “I don’t know if there is any word that can describe
it — we were in shock,” Adva said. “It hurts in every inch of our bodies.”
Carmela Dan, 80; Ofer Kalderon, 50; Sahar Kalderon, 16; Noya
Dan, 13; Erez Kalderon, 12
Carmela Dan has lived on the same kibbutz for 60 years,
finding tranquillity in a community of several hundred people who shared meals
in lush green gardens. On Saturday, she hid in a safe room with her three
grandchildren and son-in-law, Ofer Kalderon — the father of Sahar Kalderon and
Erez Kalderon — while militants threw smoke grenades into homes trying to lure
residents out, said her cousin Abbey Onn. Onn had been keeping tabs on the
family via a WhatsApp chat when she suddenly stopped hearing from Dan and
others after Israeli officials warned residents to stop using their cellphones.
Onn still had not heard from her relatives until Sunday, when a colleague said
one of the children, Onn’s second cousin, had been spotted in an Instagram
video posted by an influencer. It shows 12-year-old Erez Kalderon being
manhandled by a militant as he appears to be taken captive. “I burst into
tears. I started shaking,” Onn said. “I’m a mother of three. This is just every
parent’s worst nightmare.” Onn described her cousin, Dan, as one of the
funniest, most generous people she has ever known. She and her family and
neighbors frequently shared meals in the lush gardens of the kibbutz, Onn said.
“She and her husband helped build this legacy and felt deeply connected to the
land,” Onn said of Dan, whose husband died several years ago. “It was her kind of
beauty,” she added
Doron Asher Katz, 34; Efrat Katz, 67; Aviv Asher, 2; Raz
Asher, 5
On Saturday, Israel resident Yoni Asher’s wife, Doron Katz,
called him to say terrorists had descended on a home where she and her
relatives were hiding. The last thing she told him, he said, was that the
militants were armed and that she feared talking too loudly on the phone. Later
he watched on social media as a disturbing video emerged appearing to show his
wife, two young daughters, ages 5 and 2, and his mother-in-law being taken by
Hamas and crammed onto the back of a vehicle. He believed his father-in-law had
also been abducted. “The worst has happened — they discovered them and took
them,” Asher said. His wife and mother-in-law both have German citizenship, and
he has been in touch with the German embassy, but he remains frustrated by the
lack of updates. “I just want my little baby girls back home with my wife,” he
said.
Shiri Silberman-Bibas, 30, and her 9-month-old and 3-year-old
boys
Yifat Zailer has been desperate for news about her six
missing relatives for days. Zailer said a friend messaged her a video showing
Hamas militants capturing her cousin Silberman-Bibas, 30, as she clutched her
two small boys, who are 9 months and 3 years old. She presumes that
Silberman-Bibas’ 37-year-old husband and her parents, Yosi and Margit
Silberman, were also kidnapped, because their bodies were not among the
hundreds found in the area. Zalier said she has not heard from Silberman-Bibas
or her husband or parents. “I miss my family. I need them close,” she said,
breaking down in sobs. “I need to know they’re OK.” Zailer said she understands
that Israeli authorities are most likely consumed by the “magnitude of the
event” and are struggling to keep civilians informed. But she remains desperate
for news. “Families are crying for help,” she said. “Families are looking for
their loved ones.”
Noa Argamani, 25; Avinatan Or
In a viral video recorded Saturday morning, Noa Argamani
screams and reaches for her boyfriend as Hamas militants force her on the back
of a motorcycle during a music festival, driving off into the desert. Her
boyfriend, Avinatan Or, was overtaken by another group of men and is presumed
to have been kidnapped. Her father, Yaacov Argamani, struggled to breathe as he
told reporters that Noa, his only child, is sweet and loving. Asked what he
would tell his daughter’s captors, he said through heavy sobs: “Please, please,
I beg you, don’t hurt her.”
^ Israel completely left the Gaza Strip in 2005 leaving the governing
to the Palestinians (Israel did the same with the West Bank.)
In 2006 the Palestinians in Gaza voted the Hamas Terrorist
Group into power where they have remained to this day.
Even the Palestinians in the West Bank do not want Hamas or
their Strict Interpretation of Islamic Law (Sharia) they impose of the Palestinians
in Gaza or their continued call to completely wipe out the Jewish People.
The Palestinians in the West Bank have had little to do with
the Palestinians in Gaza since Hamas took over in 20025.
The Palestinians in the West Bank have flourished in the 18 years
since 2005 – I visited Bethlehem and Jericho in the West Bank in October 2017 –
with very few acts of violence against other Palestinians or against Israel.
The Palestinians in Gaza have not flourished in the 18 years
since 2005 – Hamas strictly controls every aspect of life there and punishes the
Palestinian Men, Women and Children who disobey their Interpretation of
Religious Law (just as the Islamic State, Al-Qaida and the Taliban.)
The Palestinians in the West Bank allow Freedom of Religion (regardless
of the Religion.)
5% of the Population of the West Bank are Officially Christian.
The Palestinians in Gaza do not allow Freedom of Religion
(regardless of the Religion.)
Less than 1% of the Population of Gaza are Officially
Christian (the number is believed much higher, but many Christians there hide
because of Hamas and their anti-Christian policies.)
The Palestinians in the West Bank want a 2 State System (Palestine
and Israel) where they will co-exist with Israel.
The Palestinians in Gaza want a 1 State System (Palestine)
where they wipe Israel off the face of the Earth.
The Palestinians in Gaza have killed the largest number of
Innocent Jewish Men, Women and Children in October 2023 since the Holocaust
ended in 1945.
The Palestinians in Gaza have killed not only 1,161 Israeli
Citizens, but: 27 Americans, 21 Thai, 13 French, 12 Ukrainians, 10 Nepalis, 7
Argentinians, 7 Ethiopians, 4 Chileans, 4 Russians, 3 Austrians, 3 Canadians, 3
Chinese, 3 Filipinos, 2 Brazilians, 2 Colombians, 2 Paraguayans, 2 Romanians, 2
South Africans. 2 Brits, 1 Australian, 1 Cambodian, 1 German, 1 Honduran, I
Irish, 1 Peruvian, 1 Portuguese, 1 Spaniard, 1 Sri Lankan and 1 Swiss.
3,400 Israelis and Other Nationalities been wounded by the Palestinians
in Gaza.
200+ Israelis and Other Nationalities (including at least 14
Americans) have been kidnaped by the Palestinians in Gaza and taken to Gaza.
The Israelis give advanced warning to the Innocent Civilians
of Gaza before they bomb or invade.
Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza gave no warning to the
Innocent Civilians of Israel before they attack, torture and kill.
The Palestinians in the West Bank don’t want to be associated
with the Terrorist Hamas Palestinians in Gaza so why would you? ^
https://news.yahoo.com/hostages-israel-families-loved-ones-223842722.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
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