I feel elation and relief when I see hostages reunited with their loved ones, but also a deep pain and fear that many are being reunited with traumatized souls who are facing years of recovery and may be unrecognizable to them. It's just too much.
Mia Schem was shot by Hamas in the arm at the Supernova music festival, before being kidnapped. She was so badly injured she required surgery. Her aunt informed the media today that Mia was operated on in an animal hospital by a veterinarian. It has been pointed out to me that it takes the highest qualifications in medicine to become a vet, and that Gaza’s doctors are inundated with civilian casualties. But to that I say - so fucking what? A human shouldn’t be operated on by a doctor who usually cares for dogs. No, Hamas were not “kind” to the hostages.
Today, Hamas released their own video of Yarden Bibas in captivity, who was separated from his wife and two babies also held hostage, and Yarden was filmed weeping over their deaths, despite a lack of confirmation yet over whether or not they are, in fact, dead.
The following is an image of the cars that remain from the Supernova music festival site. When I listened to testimony from a ZAKA volunteer, he talked about how these cars weren’t simply targeted with guns. They were targeted with RPGs, and grenades that are intended to heat up to thousands of degrees. The intention for Hamas was to cause indescribable and total pain. These thousands of cars are going to be cut into pieces and buried underground. This is to make sure that the dead are buried, because the cars contain so many pieces of human flesh.
Yaniv Yaakov, uncle of Or, 16, and Yagil, 12, who were held hostage by Hamas told the press today:
“They took the leg of each child taken hostage and burned them with the exhaust of a motorcycle to mark them in case they ran away, so that they could find them. They were drugged…”
These acts by Hamas are intended to trigger Jewish pain the world over, reminding us of the most awful memories of the Shoah. They marked the kids in case they escaped. Remind you of anything? No further proof needed that to deny the terrorism of Hamas is the same as Holocaust denial.
Many of the hostages from the posters that were ripped down are out now, and they are themselves proof that they existed. Not that this was ever about that. Now that they’re out, the world still doesn’t care about them. The only thing anyone should be talking about right now is bringing home the remaining 140+ innocent civilians, sharing their stories of survival, and advocating for them. There are 16 million Jews. We are not enough to share facts. But go on… Keep talking about pop culture, and cat memes. What “privilege” to do so.
I will never forget that after George Floyd was killed, artists like Lady Gaga were reducing their album promotion out of respect for the moment. Nobody was talking about anything else. Where is that energy now? It's the easiest thing to empathize with a newly released captive of abuse and terror. Especially when that person is a young woman, or heaven forbid a child. The whole world is caught in the shock of it. But it's not easy when it's Jews. When it's Jews it's hard.
Here are the Regev siblings who were captured, shot, and separated. Now both reunited. Back in Israel, where they belong.
Hamas "can't locate" many of the young female hostages. We have never forgotten 19-year-old Naama Levy, who had her Achilles heel slashed so she could not escape, and was brutally gang-raped.
These women are now held as slaves. And if they are ever released, and our deepest hope is that they somehow will be, the UN, the Squad, and the international media community would have to be faced with their aiding and abetting of terrorism.
Despite the scariest days of our lives, I could not be more grateful to be born a Jew. It’s an odd sensation to have been through this extraordinary week of humanitarian pause, and feel the blurring of lines between our spiritual selves and our bodily experiences. There’s no line left. We have been compelled into the rawness of our ancestry, our identity, our Jewishness. We are reeling from this week, more so than ever. We are tired of knowing that if this was anyone else, the world would care. We’re the world’s scapegoats and willing victims, or so they think. We’re not willing victims. We’re not scapegoats. We fight back.
And with that said, the ceasefire is over. Combat has resumed. Hamas will be destroyed. Our souls won’t be. We have been told for years that we Jews center ourselves in everything, and yet we’re never allowed to be the center of our own story. Our feelings matter. Our stories matter. Our lives are as valuable as anyone else’s, and so is our survival. If this happened to any other people, we would care because we Jews are humans with the highest degree of moral compass. We invented the difference between right and wrong. Our contributions to the world are valuable and our blood is not cheap. It’s not a miracle that we have these hostages home. It’s a show of our fight. We stand up for ourselves. Again, we fight back.
So yes. Combat has resumed. Bring them all home.
Finally: a little light relief. This is spectacular.
From the forests to the sea?
From the zoos to the sea?
From the igloos to the sea?
You choose.
I already knew I'd be forever haunted by that image of Naama Levy. I burst into tears when I first saw it and have now seen it about 20 times. I'd never noticed the Achilles heel. Haunted even more now. :-(
My greatest fear about the continued fighting is that more innocent IDF soldiers will die, we will not get any our hostages back and more antisemitic acts will continue. I worry that Hamas has managed to rearm and that perhaps their supporters have come to their aid in the fight. I don’t wish for any more innocent lives lost, but Hamas must be gone.