Families of hostages, joined by crowds of Israelis, gathered Monday, October 7, 2024, near Jerusalem’s Paris Square before silently marching towards the prime minister’s Azza Street home.
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They set out at around 6 a.m., and the crowd arrived at the police barricade a few hundred meters away from the official residence just before 6:29 – the time of the start of the Hamas attack on Israel one year earlier.
The crowd waited quietly, family members of hostages holding a banner with the faces of the hostages still held in Gaza or with signs with the faces of their captive family members. The uncle of Edan Alexander, a lone soldier taken hostage during his service, wrapped Tefillin.
As the clock struck 6:29, a siren started, continuing for two minutes as the crowd bowed their heads in silence.
“I looked at the calendar, and today is October 7, but for us, it’s been October 7 for a year now,” Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was killed in Hamas captivity, told The Jerusalem Post after the siren and families’ speeches that followed.
Gat, who released hostages say taught them yoga and mindfulness exercises in captivity to help them survive, was killed along with five other hostages last month, after the six had survived for nearly 11 months in captivity. They were killed just before IDF troops reached them, the military said.
Dickmann recalled October 7 of last year, saying it feels like it was just yesterday. He recollected videos of his aunt a few minutes before and a few minutes after she was killed by Hamas terrorists.
“I really can’t believe that it’s been that long and that the hostages are still there,” he said.
“There is no deal on the table that would get them back; that is what is so devastating for us.
“It was within reach to get her back. It was within reach to get all the hostages back,” he said.
“I’m going to feel [this] on myself for the rest of my life,” he added.
“101 hostages are still there, and I think what Carmel would have wanted is not for us to avenge her death and not to be sorry for the fact that we didn’t save her, but to focus on the hostages that are still alive and that we can still save, and the hostages that we can bring back and bury here in Israel.”
Dickmann talked about Gat’s attempts to take care of the other hostages with her in captivity. “Even in the darkest of times and in the darkest of places, she found the strength within herself to be strong for them. That was the most important thing; this is still the most important thing – for us to be strong for the hostages who are there.”
“The hostages haven’t lost hope; I’m sure of it. They are sitting right there thinking, ‘Okay a deal is going to come. I know a deal is going to come.’ And if they remain hopeful, we have to remain hopeful, and we have to make this day come.”
Dickmann said that the actions of Israelis were pivotal in bringing about the November deal that brought dozens of hostages home. “We demanded a deal, and a deal came. That’s exactly what we need to do right now, because this is our chance to save lives.”
Following the moment of silence, hostage family members spoke to the crowd, many sharing memories of their loved ones and talking about their experience of October 7 last year.
“Omry, my life, I miss you like crazy,” Niva Wenkert, whose son Omer is held captive, said. “I miss you like crazy. I miss you every second, in every cell in my body, with every breath, Omer.”
“My Omry, I am most afraid of the look you will give me when you come back. You will look at me with a look that asks, ‘Where were you? Mom, where are the values with which you raised me? Mom, I waited too long. Mom, what happened here?’”
“How will I justify it? What will I tell him?” she asked.
“For 101 hostages, it is still October 7, and they are still praying every moment that we will come save them, that they will be told that they are coming home, that their nightmare will end,” Shir Siegel, whose father Keith is still in captivity, said.
Yuli Ben Ami, whose father Ohad is still held captive in Gaza, read out her last conversation with him as Hamas terrorists entered their home.
Ben Ami told her father that she had asked them to send forces to his house to save him and asked how he was.
Ohad told her daughter that terrorists were in his safe room, and she later received a photo of him being taken into Gaza.
'We are here waiting for you'
“I wish that you will hear me and know that we are here waiting for you,” she said, explaining that her father knew that her family was all in danger that day and might not know that they were now safe.
A participant in the demonstration explained why he attended the early morning protest, saying it was because there are still hostages being held a year after October 7.
“There are 100 hostages being held [in Gaza], and I believe we cannot go back to our regular lives knowing that. It could have been me, it could have been you, it could have been each one of us,” he explained.
Another participant said that she feels a moral obligation to act to bring home the hostages in spite of the extreme hopelessness she feels.
It’s crazy and makes her feel she has “nothing to lose” to see what the country has become and what the government is doing to maintain power, she added.
Israel must “end the war so we can recover,” she added, saying that “as long as the hostages are there, there is no way to get closure.”