It is a day of mourning in Israel as the country marks two years since the Oct. 7 attacks. On that day, Hamas and other militant groups killed nearly 1,200 people and took 251 people hostage, according to Israeli officials.
The attack spurred Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed at least 67,000 Palestinians in two years, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
And while the war continues, families in Israel have waited, often in vain, for good news about the release of the hostages taken.
Daniel Lifshitz intimately knows what the wait for news — good or bad — feels like. His grandparents were kidnapped from their Kibbutz in southern Israel and held hostage inside Gaza.
His grandmother, Yocheved Lifshitz, was among the first hostages released by Hamas. But his grandfather was later killed while in captivity; his body was returned to Israel this past February.
“I knew about more than 90 of the first 251 hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7,” Lifshitz said. “So it was even difficult for me to count how many people I knew that had been murdered. It’s really like being in hell.”
6 questions with Daniel Lifshitz
It’s been two years. What has it been like for you and your family today?
“I think it’s being inside an impossible situation. It’s a situation that I cannot describe otherwise: a roller coaster of not even believing that it’s possible that an 85-year-old woman and an 83-year-old man would be kidnapped and be used as bargaining chips of a terror organization.
“Until the release of my grandmother, we thought my grandfather was murdered on Oct. 7. And realized 30 days after, that two elderly women had been with him and saw him in Gaza.
“He fainted and we don’t know anything about what happened to him from Oct. 26, around Oct. 26, until the day he came back to us in coffin after 503 days.
“And then, still having so many members of Kibbutz Nir Oz still being kidnapped. Nine among the 48 hostages all coming from Kibbutz Nir Oz, two of them, David and Ariel Cunio. I know them from the age of zero. I know them since they were babies.”
Your grandmother was released during the first truce between Hamas and Israel. How is she doing?
“My grandma was released after 16 days because she almost died in captivity. She had very, very bad diarrhea. She lost almost more than five kilograms in 17 days. I sat with her today. Very difficult day for her. She feels like she’s inside the tunnel. She feels she goes back to that day when she saw my grandfather for the last time. Physically, she recovered well. But mentally, every morning she wakes up and she feels that she’s in the tunnel until the last hostage will come back.”
Your grandfather, Oded, was killed in captivity. Can you tell us about him?
“My grandfather was a very courageous man. He’s an amazing person. He loves cacti. We have an amazing cacti garden that we take care of, I take care of.
“He was a human rights activist, a journalist, peace activist… for me, the one I look up to and getting all my strength, all my power and all my courage to do impossible things from him. Because I knew that, with the tools he had, he tried to change the world as much as possible. And I think that is one of the legacies that he passed for us, that we have to do whatever we can to make this world a better place with the tools we have.
“He died in the most miserable, horrible way, being dragged on Oct. 7, being shot — they shot 5 bullets, the Hamas terrorists. They dragged him naked at home through the backyard of his cactus garden. And he was unconscious and bleeding the last time that my grandmother saw him. That’s why she thought he was murdered.”
Many Israelis taken hostage that day and taken to Gaza were peace activists like your grandfather. They had helped Palestinians throughout their lives. Do you think that being taken hostage like this changes the minds or the ideologies of those who survived this whole ordeal?
“I can tell you that as much as they were peace activists, they knew that to make peace is not possible with the terror organization as Hamas. So their call was all the time to change that regime also inside Gaza. But from the other side as well, taking my grandmother when she came back, she said, ‘Well, I’m not I’m certain about the future because when I came back, I haven’t seen any Palestinians, not in Gaza, in the West Bank and the diaspora calling for the release of people like us, calling for the release of babies, calling for the release of elderly.’
“So she does believe in that. But it has to be a process, a process of education, a process of demilitarization of the Palestinian state, actually something that Mahmoud Abbas said in the U.N., with Hamas and all the other groups, has to agree to that, that there will be a new government that is not looking for terror. So I think those things are evident, but it will only start, you know, with the release of the hostages.”
How do you feel about the negotiations at this point to end the war?
“I think at this point we got an interesting point with a great, great, great chance to bring the hostages back home. And also to separate between the first clause, which is the release of the hostages, stopping the war, humanitarian aid goes into Gaza, in 72 hours we get all the hostages back home. I trust President Trump. I believe that in Israel now the government is looking forward for completing that deal as they endorsed the Trump framework. But the most important thing is that clause one will start immediately.”
It’s been two years of grief and suffering for you and for thousands of others. How do you feel the last two years have changed you?
“It’s unbelievable that in two years we cannot really even start to heal. I only feel that in the last three days because there is this optimism about the hostage release.
“It feels like I’m feeling like I’m starting to heal because I let all my emotions out. So as much as I feel and the family feel more optimistic, the anxiety level goes up. It comes together. Because we feel that if it won’t happen, then all the anxiety will explode. If it will happen, all the optimism will explode. You feel like a ticking bomb in that moment. But those are the moments we want to get to. You know, it’s much better than being in those frozen negotiation moments.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Kalyani Saxena produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Saxena also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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