Families of Israeli hostages feel desperation of little hope – still in the dark a week ‘It’s so lonely’

The current hostage situation in Gaza is unbearable, Hamas who reign in Gaza with an imposition of its own brutality.. stats show that many Palestinians themselves are killed and attacked by Hamas – its how they hold onto power without any recent electoral mandate.

The last glimpse Adina Moshe’s family saw of her shows the 72-year-old woman on a motorbike, wedged between two Hamas fighters who are kidnapping her from the Nir Oz kibbutz near Gaza.

Moshe looks terrified, but is holding her head high.

The horrifying picture is featured on a missing person notice that has been posted alongside dozens of others on the wall of HaKirya, the government and military quarters in Tel Aviv.

“First, I couldn’t look at it because it’s so shocking, you can see the kidnappers who killed her husband and put her on a motorcycle, and she has to hold onto the killers so she doesn’t fall”.

Moshe Barda said the family was told by authorities that Moshe is believed to be among the people that have been taken to Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Friday that it notified the families of 120 people taken captive, but did not release any other information.

We now know the hostage figure is near 199 if not more than. the count being difficult because of the fragmented nature of the militant groups within Gaza, some of the hostage takers being Palestinians who saw a chance to get out from Gaza – are not even affiliated with any of the terror groups.

Longer than a week after the attack, those families are still stuck in agonizing limbo. Many complaining that the government in Tel Aviv itself is not giving them any answers.

“All we have been told is that her phone is in Gaza,” Meirav Gonen, whose daughter Romi was kidnapped from the Supernova dance festival.

“I know she was shot. She called me at 10:15 and I was on with her until 10:58, she was fading away and I heard shooting around her coming closer to the car and then people shouting in Arabic, shouting she was alive and that they need her,” she said.

Much of Gaza has been bombed to ruins by the onslaught. among those suffering are the 2 million Palestinian people who were not part of any terrorist atrocity. most of who being women and children.

Back in Tel Aviv, the mood among families of those taken hostage was sombre. Many of the families of those that have been kidnapped are reluctant to criticize the government, focusing all their efforts into campaigning for the release of their loved ones.

“I want to believe that the government is not talking about it because they are putting all their effort to bring them back, we have to be united,” Moshe Barda.

“I want the government, the world, everyone to come together and bring them back. This is children without a mother, mothers without their children, grandmothers, grandfathers.”

Moshe Barda said she is finding comfort in the knowledge that her aunt is a strong woman.

If she is held with others, Moshe Barda said, she is likely to be taking care of everybody. At the kibbutz, Moshe was a childminder for many years, taking care of many children born and raised in the community.

“She is a very strong woman. Look at the picture, she is sitting on the motorcycle with her back straight, and she just saw her husband being murdered,” Moshe Barda said.