On Israeli Hostages in Gaza
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Gilad Shalit.
For the uninitiated, as a 19-year old in 2006, Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas operatives, dragged through a tunnel into Gaza, and held captive for over five years. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, he was not allowed visits from the Red Cross, nor was he allowed to communicate with his family. His plight captured the hearts and eyes of the nation and the world. Eventually, after building public pressure, the Israeli government traded 1,027 Palestinian prisoners—including more than 250 serving life sentences for carrying out deadly terror attacks—in exchange for Shalit’s safe return. It was a steep price, but the 12th Century sage Maimonides teaches us that pidyon shvuym (פדיון שבויים), or the redeeming of captives, is a mitzvah to be undertaken at any price.
Israelis and people around the world rejoiced when Shalit was released (I remember following live coverage and crying tears of joy when Shalit set foot on Israeli soil once again, at long last), but it’s not hard to draw a line from that event to where we are today. Within weeks of Shalit’s release, Saudi royals were offering million dollar bounties for the capture of more Israeli soldiers. A year after his release, Hamas held a week-long celebration and expressed intent to capture more soldiers to secure more prisoner swaps.
While the capture of Shalit held the attention of a nation—as news reports counted the days of his captivity and schoolchildren prayed for his safe return—the current hostage situation is almost too much to fathom. While Gilad’s face was plastered on every wall and burned in every Israel’s memory, today the names and faces are too numerous to memorize. On October 7, Hamas captured over 200 Israeli civilians—not soldiers—many of them babies, young children, or elderly. Their families are terrified and bereft. Their communities, still reeling over the loved ones who were brutally murdered on 10/7, are forced to split their focus between sitting shiva and praying for their safe return. The grief is unimaginable.
None of this is meant as a condemnation of the prisoner swap deal that reunited Gilad with his family. We are taught that whoever saves a single life, saves the world entire.
Last week, I went to a community vigil. As we entered, each person was handed a card with the name, face, and story of someone missing in Israel. My wife was handed a woman who was later identified among the dead at Kibbutz Be’eri. I was handed Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old photographer who was volunteering at the Re’im festival. He was supposed to leave the festival earlier with some friends, but he stayed behind to help someone who had had too much to drink. He has not been seen or heard from since 10/7, but his family is holding out hope that he will persevere. I’ve thought about him every day since the vigil. I Google his name every morning, hoping for good news, dreading bad news. I won’t forget his face or his name. We don’t have the luxury, this time, of all memorizing the face of the same hostage, but, like the Vietnam-era POW bracelets, we can each hold vigil and keep the memory of someone.
Ten years after his release, Gilad married his longtime girlfriend. I’m sure he still carries the mental and emotional scars of his time as a hostage, but he has been able to build a life for himself in spite of his hardships. Human resilience knows no bounds. I hope Idan and all the others being held by Hamas get the chance for the homecoming and subsequent shot at a “normal” life that Gilad Shalit got. I hope the world embraces them upon their return and cries the same tears of joy they shed for Gilad. And I hope one day, someday, we will all live to see a world at peace.