This week, we celebrated my eldest daughter’s fifth birthday. Another day on the calendar, and with each passing day, the heart breaks just a little more. Sometimes, I wonder what’s even holding us together. A day that’s supposed to be full of joy is instead filled with sadness. The absence is overwhelming—Yarden, Shiri, and their kids remain hostages in Gaza, along with many others.
When my daughter blew out her birthday candles, she made a wish: “I wish we could go down to the Kinneret and meet Luli.” To you, Luli is Ariel Bibas, the little redhead, but for her, he’s her best friend. That wish carries everything I long for—for her, for all of us. A life of peace, of normalcy, where we can go on spontaneous trips to the Kinneret for picnics and swims. A life where birthdays can truly be happy again. And most of all, a wish for Ariel, Kfir, Shiri, and Yarden to come home.
Lately, it feels like the words we keep shouting—"Now," "Bring them home," "Time’s running out"—are losing their meaning. Over the past year, the return of the hostages, once a national consensus and top priority, now seems weighed against the security of the state and its citizens. Yet, the hostages remain in Gaza, and there is no peace, no security.
We lived for four years in the Gaza border communities at Kibbutz Re’im, not far from my brother Yarden and his family. We grew accustomed to the sirens and the tension, making sure the fortified room’s window was closed before putting the kids to bed. Two months before the nightmare of Simchat Torah on October 7, we moved to the Golan Heights, hoping for some quiet.
But since then, there’s been no quiet. The hole in our souls deepens every day that Shiri and Yarden, with their kids, remain among the 101 hostages still held by Hamas. Now, as a family of hostages living in the North, there’s a new layer of fear: since Simchat Torah, a siren is no longer just a siren. My pulse races and my anxiety grows. Since my brother and his family were taken, I can’t be complacent; I can’t look the other way. I feel an even greater responsibility to protect myself and my family.
My five-year-old still believes the army and the state are protecting us. And I have to tell her it’s true, even when I feel like the state is betraying Yarden, his family, and the other hostages. Even when all I see is strategic blindness, a lack of vision—just targeted killings and survival.
Mix of emotions over current events
After every assassination, I feel the same mix of emotions. I wish I could feel relief or joy at the deaths of people like Sinwar or the elimination of Nasrallah. Instead, I’m filled with anxiety, constantly questioning what this means for the lives and survival of my family and the other hostages. It’s been 383 days of this.
The destruction of Hamas and the return of the hostages have always seemed like contradictory goals. But now, with the military’s victory over Hamas, it’s time to leverage the army’s achievements in Gaza and Lebanon, end the war, and bring everyone home. Only then can we start to rebuild. Only then will there be true peace in the North, and people can return to their homes. Revenge and symbolic victories, as important as they may be, aren’t enough. We need to prove we’re not just good at eliminating enemies—we need to show we can save our loved ones, too.
Ofri Bibas Levy is the sister of Yarden Bibas, who was kidnapped to Gaza along with his wife, Shiri, and their two children, Ariel and Kfir.