Day 423. 101 Hostages. One Sign of Life.
How a 3-minute video of Edan Alexander convulsed a very fraught Israel.
“Do you know about their condition? Have you had any signs of life?”
I asked my friend Elon Kotler that question last Saturday afternoon when we visited his Kibbutz, Kfar Aza, which was ravaged on October 7.
“Even if we do know,” he said, “we do not talk about it.”
Elon spoke of the discomfort felt by many kibbutz members; that their most private, inner lives have become the focus of unrelenting public curiosity. So much of the interest, he acknowledges, comes from a good place. People want to be helpful and compassionate. But the expectation that survivors will – and can – bare their souls…..it takes a toll.
“I can’t stand it when people tell me to feel better,” he tells me.
He says this as we are standing on the edge of the Young Generation neighborhood, where Elon lived for a time. He smiles wanly as he recalls that period. How there was always a party. How awesome it was to be given one’s own space at age 18, before going to do army service. Being close enough to one’s parents but with the room to become a young adult.
This neighborhood is also very close to the fence separating the kibbutz from the Gaza Strip. And it remains an incinerated husk of what once was. It became a cyclone of madness and slaughter on October 7. Most of the young people living there were murdered. Many were burned alive. Four remain in Hamas captivity. 422 days on.
Elon is a gentle, contemplative man, and the father of two young girls. He is one of six adult children. Some remained on Kfar Aza, some have wandered. His youngest sister, Dror, survived with 11 others in her safe room on October 7, many of them children who had spent the night at a pajama party. Her spirit and home were free and fun, Elon tells me, and one of his daughters was among the terrified group in the safe room. For more than 12 hours.
Dror’s home is as close as can be to the fence separating the kibbutz from the 3 kilometer land buffer between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Terrorists breached the fence in three spots on Kfar Aza, one being a stone’s throw from Dror’s home.
Elon lived in a neighborhood that was barely damaged. It seems that the closer one was to the fence or perimeter road, the more vulnerable they were. Logical. But not always how things went.
We stopped by Elon’s home. His face lit up when he saw that one of his plants was flowering. “Someone has been taking care of my little garden,” he said, with obvious delight. There were many thriving, potted plants.
It is tempting to indulge in cheap metaphor here. The flowering plant. New life. New beginnings.
But not in this place. It is just a plant.
The drive home from Kfar Aza is about 20 minutes. When I arrived I checked the news, would any compulsive Israeli. Hamas had just released another horror video of a lone soldier held hostage, 20-year-old American-Israeli Edan Alexander.
Initially, a brief clip of several seconds was released publicly. It shows Edan, in captivity for 420 days (when the video was filmed) burying his head in his arms and sobbing. He is surrounded by darkness.
That metaphor, tragically, is apt.
That night. At 8:10 pm, Edan Alexander’s mother, Yael, took the stage at Hostage Square, Tel Aviv. Her composure, and palpable heartache, were at once so painful and inspiring. One can only hope that Edan’s guards allowed him to see his strong, noble mother plead for his freedom.
Edan was born in Tel Aviv and grew up in New Jersey. When he wanted to volunteer for the IDF, his mother, Yael, supported this decision, a fork in the road she now openly regrets. Had he been in college, she has commented to Israeli media, he would not be a Hamas prisoner.
By coincidence, when Edan was captured on October 7,, 2023, Yael was visiting Israel. Her son insisted on returning to his base that night, after enjoying a visit with his mom on October 6 in Tel Aviv. As a lone soldier whose parents lived abroad, It would have been a cinch for him to have a leave request approved so he could spend time with his mom. But Edan felt a responsibility to his fellow soldiers. At 5:30 am on Saturday, October 7, 2023, he was on guard duty on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Initially, we now know, most of the kidnapped civilians and soldiers were taken to a room somewhere in the Gaza Strip. It was there that Edan, bound in chains, in uniform, reassured an elderly couple that they would be released soon because they were civilians. He comforted a young boy who had been taken hostage.
That he had the compassion to give to others in such a moment tells us so much about Edan Alexander.
Soon after these encounters, men and soldiers were separated from women and children.
This three-and-a-half-minute video is the first visual sign of life of Edan in 423 days now. It appears to have been filmed on Day 420 of his captivity. You can view the video, below.
The weekly Saturday night support rally for the hostages began with the video of Edan being shown. The crowd in Hostage Square on Saturday night stood, silently, watching. (Credit: Adar Eyal)
Then Edan’s mother, Yael Alexander, spoke.
In her remarks, she mentioned that after the video was released earlier that day, she received a telephone call from Prime Minister Netanyahu. The crowd began to boo but quieted immediately as Yael held out her hand gesturing for them to stop. She said that the Prime Minister promised her that now that he has negotiated a ceasefire in Lebanon the release of hostages is the top priority.
“The video we just saw”, she said, ”is not a scripted Hollywood movie - this is the horrific reality we've been living since October 7th, for 421 days. 421 days during which I haven't seen or heard my soul - my Edan. The video has shaken me and my family. While it gives us hope, it also shows how difficult the situation is for Edan and the other hostages, and how desperately they are crying out for us to rescue them - now!
My Edan represents all the living hostages who cannot make their voices heard, and this voice needs to reverberate and shake everyone! My dear Edan, my beloved, we miss you painfully. I want to tell you that following your message earlier this evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called me. He reassured me and promised that now, after reaching an arrangement in Lebanon, conditions are right to free you all and bring you home. Edan, this is also the will of the people!"
Edan’s grandmother, Varda, spoke next. She said that the video devastated her. Hearing him ask his grandparents, his family, to be strong; hearing him say that this nightmare will end soon.
One after another, former hostages and family members took the podium to beseech the Prime Minister and his government colleagues to negotiate the freedom of the 101 hostages, dead and alive, remaining in Hamas Hell. Below is a composite of their desperate and moving remarks, consistently addressed to PM Netanyahu:
You have had your victory over Hamas. You have your ceasefire in Lebanon. You have had your Philadelphi corridor. You have delayed and delayed and delayed. We must bring them home now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not after another meeting. You must find the courage to manage the extremists in your coalition who seem to value the resettlement of the Gaza Strip to avenge the evacuation of Gush Katif (the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip that were forcibly dismantled by the government of PM Ariel Sharon) in 2005. Ministers Smotrich, Ben Gvir and many of their colleagues openly prioritize the establishment of settlements in the Gaza Strip over any deal to release hostages. A deal, they state, would require that Israel release many Hamas prisoners.
And these men have prevailed until today, by threatening to bring down the government if any hostage deal is negotiated that requires the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Among the speakers that night was Keren Munder, who was held hostage with her 9-year-old son, Ohad, for 49 days. Her father, Avraham Munder, was murdered in captivity. His body was found and returned to Israel for burial in August.
Munder spoke about the complexity of everything. How life is and never will be “normal”; certainly not before the remaining hostages are home. But even then, we all know but dare not say aloud, life after October 7 will be forever altered from what it was on October 6.
Last week, the medical and mental health professionals who have overseen the “rehabilitation” and reintegration of returned hostages and the family members issued reports addressing the extreme challenges, holistically. Survivor guilt, extreme anxiety and PTSD, regressive behavior, and withdrawal. Inability to derive pleasure from things they once enjoyed. Chronic physical ailments exacerbated by pre-existing conditions as well as many health issues caused by starvation, malnutrition, lack of water, hygiene. Lack of air deep in the tunnels. No daylight. No electricity or water. Extreme dampness. We are spared details and individual diagnoses are not disclosed. But we don’t need more information than we have. We already know more than enough.
Saturday night marked one year from when the final group of hostages was freed during the brief November ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Watching the footage of the hostages being released and embraced by loved ones is excruciating. Like so many, I believed that the rest would be rescued or have had their freedom negotiated. Long ago.
Remember. How so many of the young girls emerged from their Hamas Hell, into bright lights shone directly on them as they were “escorted” by masked and armed Hamas thugs to the Red Cross vehicles waiting to spirit them to Israel? Remember how their hair was braided so intricately? That was done by Agam Berger, one of the female IDF soldiers taken brutally from the Nahal Oz army base. She wanted the girls to look and feel nice and special as they returned home. We know Agam now as a brutalized young woman, bound, helpless and bloodied. On October 6, she was a beautiful young woman, a talented violinist, and by all accounts a lovely person.
We are all stunned that we await an end to this nightmare. In December, 2024.
On the frigid morning of Sunday, December 1, in New York City, Adi Alexander, Edan’s father, addressed a crowd of supporters. Standing close by were the parents of Omer Neutra, likely even more hopeful, following the video of Edan, that their son might be alive.
You can watch Adi Alexander’s brief remarks here.
This morning, Monday, we awoke to learn that Omer Neutra, another lone American-Israeli soldier, was murdered on October 7, age 21, and his body was taken hostage.
Following the pleas of Edan Alexander and his mother, Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, saw fit to dismiss any calls for a deal to release Edan and all 101 hostages. We must not show weakness, Ben Gvir said. We must not release a single Palestinian prisoner. We must forge on. We must resettle the Gaza Strip. This strip of land, of no biblical significance, is what this man and his political colleagues are fixated on.
In an interview on Sunday with the popular “Army Radio” station, Ben Gvir stated that whereas Prime Minister Netanyahu had resisted the possibility of Israelis settling in the Gaza Strip, he is now much more receptive to the idea. He added that the resettlement of Palestinians from the area, with their “agreement”, was also being considered seriously by the government.
Itamar Ben Gvir is also the man whose support PM Benjamin Netanyahu depends on to keep his extremist coalition intact.
Israeli society is so strained and taut and fraught. We need many things to move forward, but first, we need Edan Alexander and the other 100 hostages to be freed.
Now.
As Thomas Hand, the father of former hostage, 10-year-old Emily Hand, shouted fiercely from the stage in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.
“Not tomorrow. Not after another meeting. Now”
Words which were echoed by his beautiful daughter, Emily, at his side. Sweet Emily, who was held hostage by Hamas for 50 days, and turned 9 in captivity.
“Bring them home. Now!”
