I Just Hope That They Are Alive: The Kidnapping of 150 Israelis by Hamas
In an unprecedented attack that moved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into uncharted territory, Palestinian militants kidnapped a large number of Israelis. Their family members describe how they were apprehended.
The other half of Gaya Kalderon’s family was last heard from at 8:26 on Saturday morning.
Her 16-year-old sister Sahar texted her, “They are here.”
“Who is?” Gaya, 21, answered.
Sahar responded, “We’re hiding from them. “We stepped outside.”
I asked, “Where are you?” said Gaya. Asking “Where are you going?”
No one responded.
The last time Ms. Kalderon, who was in shock, saw any indication of her missing relatives online was on Sunday. A video of Palestinian militants pushing an Israeli youngster down a walkway surfaced.
“I am looking on Instagram and I see a video,” Ms. Kalderon recalled. “And it’s my brother.”
Erez, 12, and four other members of the Kalderon family are feared to be among an estimated 150 Israelis, many of them civilians, taken hostage by Palestinian militants during the broadest invasion of Israeli territory in 50 years. About 900 other Israelis were killed, according to a government statement.
The hostages were taken from residences in communities near Israel’s Gaza border, including the Kalderons’ tiny settlement of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, military installations, and a sizable outdoor dance party.
There are civilians, military, disabled individuals, kids, grandparents, and even a 9-month-old infant among them. At least one Palestinian Israeli citizen suspected to be a hostage is a bus driver who, after transporting Israelis to the outdoor party, stayed the night nearby.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has entered uncharted terrain as a result of the large number of Israelis taken captive by Palestinian terrorists. This is due to both the sheer quantity of hostages as well as the terrible threats Hamas is making against Israel.
The armed branch of Hamas threatened to kill a civilian prisoner on Monday night, saying that it would do so each time an Israeli airstrike hit Gazans “in their homes without warning.”
Gunmen have abducted a few Israelis since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, including Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier whose kidnapping shocked Israel. In 2011, he was released, but only following protracted talks and the release of almost 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Given how many citizens were kidnapped and how many were captured this past weekend, the standoff has grown more tense and unpredictable.
According to the Gaza health authorities, Israel has already replied to the devastating attack by Hamas with a counterattack on the surviving insurgents inside Israel and an exceptionally severe sequence of strikes on Gaza, killing a total of roughly 687 Palestinia
But with so many Israelis in Gaza, Israel runs the risk of murdering its own citizens. Despite the fact that the report could not be independently corroborated, Hamas claimed on Monday that four Israeli hostages had been murdered in an Israeli strike.
The threat to execute captives was then made by the military wing of Hamas on Monday night if the attacks in Gaza continued.
Eyal Hulata, who until January served as Israel’s national security adviser, speculated that Hamas may have believed that seizing dozens of detainees would increase its prospects of pursuing a significant prisoner swap with Israel.
But Mr. Hulata contended that now is not the time to even consider such a trade for Israel, which is currently experiencing one of the biggest catastrophes in its history.
Mr. Hulata conceded that a continuous Israeli attack may result in the deaths of some Israeli prisoners. But he said that it would probably be Hamas’ fault for “using them as human shields.”
“I intend to take everyone home. However, we can’t do that as long as the opposition believes they can get away with it, Mr. Hulata remarked.
When Israel and Hamas were negotiating over hostages in the past, Egypt and Qatar were crucial mediators between the two enemies. However, for the time being, Yaron Blum, a veteran Israeli intelligence official who served for five years as the nation’s point person for captured and missing Israelis, claimed that the parties were just “at the stage of passing messages along,” as opposed to direct conversations to free captives.