Anger and Despair in Hostage Square

Monday afternoon, May 12.  About one hundred people stand in front of the stage in Hostage Square holding posters of Edan Alexander. We’re waiting for updates on his release. Most of us are wearing some variety of the Bring Them Home t-shirt. We are watching nothing on a giant screen onstage. Edan has yet to be released. And even when that happens, we expect only a still photo at best, since Hamas has promised the USA that there will be no staged ceremony. At least that comforts us after the painful travesties we witnessed earlier this year.

So we watch a panel of newscasters – the same thing we have been watching since October 7th. A never-ending parade of talking heads, supposed experts, spouting their theories about what’s happening, what happened, and what will happen next. Bla bla bla, again and again. Lots of news but nothing new. Here we are at another pop-up news event in the world of nonstop news and no news. Our surreal daily life here in Israel, where nothing is real and everything is reality. Living inside a soundstage. Life inside the Truman Show.

Facing us, looking down on us from the stage, are 30 photographers (I counted). They’re taking photos of us watching nothing on the big screen behind them. Another 10 or so photographers are scattered among and behind us in the square. Welcome to the show.

I stand next to my friend Hadassah, sister of Shlomo Mantzur, may he rest in peace. Shlomo, the 85-year-old hostage who was brought home for burial during the short-lived ceasefire a few months ago. Nearby, there are visitors from the USA, trying to understand what’s going on. ‘What is everyone watching? What are those newscasters saying in Hebrew? What’s happening?’ they ask me. Nothing I tell them. Nothing is happening. I translate a bit of the bla bla. I tell them we won’t see anything for a while, that Eden is about to be handed over to the Red Cross, and only then will he begin his journey home. Yes, it is an eventful day, but this is a non-event.

Hostage family members spoke at a press conference earlier today, all with the same message: We are glad that Edan is coming home. But we are enraged that this miracle is happening only because Edan has a US passport and because it suits the purposes of President Trump. What about our sons, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers? What about the other 58?

I echo these sentiments. Yes, I am delighted for Edan and his family: For over one year, we have stood together onstage each Saturday night at the hostage family rallies. Amidst my despair for the remaining hostages, I console myself with the fact that at least for the Alexanders, there is comfort. Edan’s release is the best possible outcome in the worst possible circumstances.

The author flanked by members of Edan Alexander’s family at a recent rally. Photo by Lior Rothstein. Used with permission.

What about the other 58 hostages? What about the recent poll showing that 84% of Israelis want the hostages home at any cost? We want them home, knowing that the only way to achieve this is to end the war in Gaza. We understand we cannot defeat Hamas, or even attempt to, if we are to get our hostages home. And yes, we understand this bodes badly for our future. None of us wants to live next door to a bloodthirsty group of terrorists bent on our destruction. None of us has any illusion that Hamas means to live beside us in peace. But we do not see another way out. At least not for now. Our hostages are starving to death. Our soldiers are being killed.

And then there are the civilian casualties on the other side: the Gazan civilians being killed, starved, deprived of shelter, as their homes are razed in an intentional war of destruction. Sadly, there are many here in Israel who say that there are no innocent Gazans, that all are complicit, even little children. But many more Israelis are on the humanitarian side. We know that tiny children should not be held to blame for what their elders do, and that many adults, too, are victims of the terror organizations, especially Hamas, who threaten them, use them as human shields and tools of propaganda, gleefully celebrating their deaths as martyrs.

The humanitarian organization I belong to, NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief, just testified in front of a panel of government ministers, asking for permission to help Gazan children in need of medical aid. We were laughed at. ‘There are no innocent Gazans,’ said one minister. ‘They do not deserve any help,’ said another. This is the alternate reality in this crazy country of ours. A 4-year-old amputee is somehow to blame for his own misery.

NATAN’s head of emergency medical relief, Dr. Sharon Shaul, presents our case in Jerusalem. [screenshot from public TV broadcast]

But we’re also besieged by those who are charged with protecting us. The government of our own country seems to be waging war on us, intent on destroying our wills, breaking our spirits, and beyond that, killing us off. Hostages are left to languish and die in the tunnels of Gaza. Soldiers are sent off to their deaths in a war which can never be won.

The author protesting in Tel Aviv.

I stand with the families of the hostages. I stand for those who cannot speak, perhaps can no longer even whisper, as they waste away in tunnels. Our government knows very well that every minute of every day puts these innocent people at dire risk. Each breath may be their last. This is not hyperbole. This is a medical fact. These are the statistical odds, the physical possibility of surviving underground, in starvation conditions, deprived of drinking water, deprived of air to breathe. Add to this the constant threat, the mortal danger of being underneath a city being bombarded by the very army charged with protecting its citizens. We do not know the precise number of hostages who’ve been killed by Israeli bombardments so far, but by my rough count, there are dozens.

In anger and despair, we march through the streets. We shout, “Stop the War! Bring them home!” When will our government deign to listen to us?