By Leah Garber
During the week of Hanukkah, a festival entirely devoted to praising the great miracle that occurred in 167 B.C.E., when the few Jews prevailed over the many Greeks and one small, pure jar of olive oil lasted eight days for lighting the Temple menorah, we desperately hoped for another miracle: the return of 100 tortured brothers and sisters. We are still waiting for that miracle.
The millions of Hanukkah candles lit across the world failed to illuminate the darkness. Prayers composed expressly for the return of the hostages and uttered from broken hearts did not hasten the longed-for miracle. The Jewish people’s flame did not melt away the evil; this Hanukkah, we saw no miracle.
Even the end of the cursed year of 2024 and welcoming 2025 brought no transformation. The world celebrated momentarily—fireworks lit up the skies and champagne flowed like water—but those among us trapped in darkness and distress remained there, and those dying daily from hunger and thirst never tasted the sparkling drink.
Four-hundred-and-sixty days of thick, heavy darkness. Neither Hanukkah candles nor celebratory fireworks reached the depths of Gaza’s terror tunnels. There, 100 hostages have been reliving the horror of their kidnapping for 460 days, and since then, these living dead try to survive, unable to comprehend how they were left behind for so long.
Have we normalized this reality? Has watching Hamas videos of tortured hostages on the nightly news become part of a new routine, another part of daily life here?
Six Israelis were killed this week, shattering the lives of six families. Three were civilians murdered by Palestinian terrorists on their way home to the community of Kedumim, and three were Israeli soldiers killed during the fighting in Gaza. Six worlds gone in one week. Have we become numb? Do we look momentarily and painfully at the victims’ photos, wipe away a tear, and move on to the next news story?
Is it normal to get used to the Houthis in Yemen firing missiles toward civilian targets in Israel several times a week, sending millions of Israelis into shelters? Have we grown accustomed to being awakened in the middle of the night by the warning siren to jump from bed, snatch sleeping infants and children from their sweet dreams, run to the shelter, and then, after 10 minutes, return to sleep? How can one adapt to this reality?
Yet again, a broken and shattered mother of a captive soldier begs tearfully for her son’s life, knowing he would be the last to be included in a prisoner exchange deal. A senior government minister looks into her eye and admits: “We cannot promise your son will return, or if he returns, that he’ll return alive.” Why? Because we’ve normalized this surreal reality we’re living in.
Another round of reserve duty, two full months with dad away from home, fighting, risking his life, while spouses and children remain behind, awaiting his return for the fourth or fifth time this year. Who can keep count anymore? The children have run out of fingers, and those in kindergarten haven’t yet learned to count high enough.
Fifteen months of war and it seems everything possible has been written and said. We’ve cried oceans of tears, screamed, protested, embraced bereaved families. What now? Until when?
My burning fear is that we’ll all grow accustomed. Accustomed to the phrase “cleared for publication,” announcing another fallen soldier. Early on, this phrase immediately wrapped all of us in somber grief. Now it is it becoming one more headline among many. Accustomed to the daily rampaging terror on Judea and Samaria’s roads, near the homes of hundreds of thousands of Israelis, threatening their lives. I am fearful that it will become legitimate to remove a hostage’s mother from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, because her protest disrupts lawmakers’ agenda and that it will make sense for government ministers to prioritize their political life expectancy over that of the hostages who wither away a bit more with each passing day.
Growing accustomed and normalizing reality is extremally dangerous. It means letting despair and pain declare: “This is it, we can’t take anymore,” and from there, simply accepting reality with a “c’est la vie” attitude. But this is not how life should be, and this is not a reality we should live—when one hundred innocents, men and women, young and old, two toddlers and infinite pain remain besieged, bound, tortured. They are so close, just kilometers from home, yet so far, beyond mountains of darkness, deep in the earth, in the enemy’s jaws. We don’t have the luxury to grow accustomed, to move on, to learn to live with amputated limbs, with broken hearts.
At the week’s start, a lone ray of sunlight pierced the frost—a piece of hope—finally, a deal seemed closer. Hamas terrorists supposedly published a list, later proven incorrect, of those to be included in the upcoming hostage return deal. Imagine the impossible: Some hostage families allowed a light smile to emerge, thinking perhaps, perhaps this meant their loved one is alive and will return soon. They envisioned embracing them, asking their forgiveness. Other families, whose loved ones weren’t on the list—what hell are they enduring? Is their exclusion from the list a death sentence? And now, as days pass, for both groups, the hope that almost allowed itself to banish despair is again diminished. The deal is stuck, Hamas isn’t really cooperating. They have no list. Do Hamas terrorists even know where the hostages are, who’s alive, and who’s buried forever in Gaza’s cursed sands?
Avinatan Or went to the Nova Music Festival with his partner Noa Argamani to celebrate, rejoice, enjoy. When the massacre began, the couple hid for hours, reported their location, and texted for help, but it never came. Then they were discovered by the terrorists. Avinatan was videotaped being led away on foot by Hamas terrorists, and since then he’s been captive in Gaza. Noa also was taken hostage, but she was released from Hamas captivity on June 8, 2024. Thirty-one-year-old Avinatan is healthy and strong. Will his age and physical strength seal his fate? Is his destiny to wait in line until another deal ripens, if at all? Can you blame his parents for begging for one deal for all the hostages rather than phase after phase after phase?
Yair and Eitan Horn, two brothers from Kibbutz Nir Oz, were kidnapped from their home and their fate remains unclear. On the list of candidates for release in the upcoming deal, a list whose authenticity is questionable, only one brother’s name appears. What about the other? Is one included because his humanitarian condition demands it? What does that say about what he’s going through? And will their mother embrace one son while her other son withers away?
Gad Haggai, age 72, was kidnapped from his home with his wife Judy Weinstein. Both were murdered by Hamas terrorists and their bodies are held in Gaza. Will their bodies be returned to Israel, meriting honorable burial in their beloved country’s soil, or will they forever remain buried in Gaza’s sands, abandoned, without marker or tombstone?
Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, two IDF soldiers, were killed in Gaza battles in 2014. Their bodies have been held there since, human bargaining chips, for over 10 years now. Will the others share their fate, paying with their lives and with their deaths the blood price of our life in Israel?
And just today, we received news that IDF forces in Gaza located the bodies of Youssef and Hamza Ziyadne, a father and son who were abducted on October 7. The pair, Bedouin Muslims and Israeli citizens from Rahat, were kidnapped from Kibbutz Holit, where they were working. Hamza’s younger siblings, Bilal and Aisha, also were taken but later released in a hostage exchange deal. For 460 days, Youssef and Hamza’s loving family hoped for their return, yearned to hug them and help them recover from the nightmare, only to learn that they are no longer among the living. With the return of their bodies to Israel for burial, the number of Israelis remaining in Hamas captivity stands at 98.
The routine of war is grinding. Danger hasn’t gone anywhere; we’ve just grown used to it. Threats are still here; we’ve simply learned to live alongside them. But never, never will we grow accustomed to half our heart, all our hearts, being captive in Gaza, its beat growing weaker with each passing day.
Together, united, we will overcome.
Leah Garber is a senior vice president of JCC Association of North America and director of its Center for Israel Engagement in Jerusalem.
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