One year ago, Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli estimates.
At least 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, although a significant number are thought to already be dead. The attacks led Israel to unleash an unprecedented assault on Gaza, where the death toll has now surpassed 41,000, according to Palestinian authorities.
Many families of the hostages, worried their loved ones are also under bombardment, have spent a year campaigning for a truce deal to secure their relatives’ release. The Independent spoke to Israelis whose lives were irrevocably changed by that day.
‘I’m screaming for the world to help’
Aviva Siegel, 63, was kidnapped by Hamas alongside her husband Keith, 65, from Kafr Azar, near the Gaza border. She was held in Gaza for 51 days before being released in the November hostage exchange deal. Keith, who is from North Carolina, remains captive.
Aviva Siegel knows exactly what her husband, an American-Israeli hostage in Gaza, is going through – because she endured 51 days of captivity in Hamas’s tunnels herself.
The grandmother of five describes the suffocating conditions underground, not being able to speak or move.
“There wasn’t enough oxygen to keep yourself alive. You had to keep quiet for 24 hours a day. You could barely eat, drink, move, talk, or even breathe.”
She says their captors “did not even look at us as humans.”
Siegel and her husband Keith, a retiree from North Carolina, were snatched from their home in Kfar Azar, which had become one of the epicentres of the attack. She was taken into Gaza’s tunnel system and moved between more than a dozen locations. Aviva was forced to say goodbye to her husband seven weeks later when she was included in the last major prisoner swap deal in November last year. Since then, she has fought tirelessly for her husband’s release.
The last time she saw Keith, who suffers from low blood pressure, was in a video released by Hamas in April. He appeared crying and gaunt. But Aviva says her breaking point came when she saw videos released in September showing the tunnels where six other hostages, who were shot dead when an imminent truce deal collapsed at the eleventh hour.
“It broke my heart,” she tells The Independent, crumbling into tears. “It showed the tunnels – Keith is still in those tunnels, with no oxygen, no bathroom, no way to wash.”
Speaking from New York, where she has travelled to lobby for support from world leaders, Aviva worries daily about whether Keith is still alive, knowing what she went through.
“One of the worst moments was when they took us 40 metres underground, where there was no oxygen. They left us with no water and no food. We couldn’t breathe. We just lay there, wondering who would die first.”
At one point, Aviva attempted to drink her own urine due to a lack of water. She and her husband lacked critical medicine, and were regularly beaten and screamed at by guards. She believes one of the female captives was subjected to sexual violence.
Aviva now pleads for world leaders to push for a new deal to bring the rest of the hostages home before it’s too late.
“I’m screaming to the world for help. Keith, the boys, and the girls are just lying there, wondering what will happen next. How can we let this continue?”
‘There is still time to bring the other hostages back and save innocent lives on both sides of the border’
Carmel Gat, 41, was seized from her home in Kibbutz Beer’i on 7 October and held for nearly a year before she was shot dead in September by her captors. Her cousin Gil Dickmann, who has travelled the world calling for her release, says she was on the verge of being released but accuses Israel of refusing to sign the deal off.
After his cousin was shot dead in a tunnel in Gaza, Gil Dickmann realised just how close they were to securing her release in a deal.
Carmel Gat, 41, an occupational therapist, was captured from Kibbutz Beer’i on 7 October. Her mother was killed by Hamas that day, and her sister-in-law, who was also taken captive, was later released in the November hostage deal.
Carmel, who taught yoga to the other hostages to help them cope with the terror, was quite literally next on the list to be freed.
Gil has spent a year travelling the globe campaigning for her release. He was even briefly detained in Washington DC, after interrupting the Israeli prime minister’s speech by holding up a sign that read, “Seal the deal.”
He later found out Carmel was scheduled to be released after the November deal collapsed and was again listed for release in agreements being negotiated in March and July this year. He says he spoke to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
“He actually said, ‘I did not agree to that deal.’ And Carmel was left behind. Later, it was military pressure that led her guards to pull the trigger,” he says.
Mr Dickmann says Carmel and five other hostages were shot dead by their militant guards this September in a tunnel in Rafah after the Israeli military closed in on Hamas positions.
Mr Dickmann worries that the Israeli government has “chosen to keep the war going for political purposes and sacrifice hostages”.
“The Israeli government has made it clear that it’s more important to keep the war going indefinitely than to get hostages back alive… They know that once the war is over, they’ll have to answer very difficult questions.”
He now fears the multi-state regional conflict that is exploding across the Middle East – pitting Israel against Iran, the Tehran-backed Hezbollah and other proxies and supporters in Iraq and Yemen – has only made it “more dangerous” for the hostages, as there will be no end, no ceasefires, and no deals.
“That’s the only way to stop this. The whole world should understand that what we’re seeing is not just Israelis fighting against Palestinians, but two leaders [in the leaders of Israel and Hamas] who want the war to go on forever for their own political gain, sacrificing the lives of innocent people on both sides of the border.
“That’s why we’re not focused on revenge, but on getting the rest of the hostages back alive.
“And there’s still a chance to get them back, we know that.”
‘I’m stuck in 7 October 2023, until my sister is freed’
Doron Steinbrecher, 31, a veterinary nurse, was seized from her home in Kafr Azar on 7 October. Her sister, Yamit Ashkenazi, 35, a special education teacher, worries that Doron, who has a chronic illness, may not have survived her captivity.
The last message Doron sent was a voice note to her friends at around 10.30am on 7 October, where she frantically shouted: “They caught me.”
Doron was living by herself in Kibbutz Kafr Azar, near the Gaza border, when she was captured. The only proof of life came in January, over 100 days later, when she appeared in a Hamas video, begging for help.
Yamit, who also survived the attack by hiding for 21 hours in her bomb shelter, has tirelessly campaigned for her sister’s release.
“Even though I was rescued, I still feel like I’m stuck on 7 October because as long as my sister is in Gaza, I cannot move on,” she says, holding a picture of Doron, whom she calls a “ray of sunshine”. Yamit even had a sunrise with one missing ray tattooed onto her skin to symbolise her kidnapped sister.
“When Doron is freed, I will get the last ray tattooed in,” she adds.
She says it’s been “way too long” since the kidnapping to know her sister’s condition. Doron is chronically ill and needs daily medicine – in the Hamas video it appeared as if she hadn’t had access to it.
Of the 64 residents of Kafr Azar killed on 7 October, 19 were taken to Gaza, she says. Twelve have been released, and five, including Doron, remain inside. Two of them were shot dead by the Israeli army in Gaza as they tried to escape captivity – an action the military said was a mistake.
Yamit has joined marches and protests, urging Mr Netanyahu to “seal the deal” and bring the hostages home.
“No one is doing enough—the Israeli government, the UK, the US,” she says with a crack in her voice.
“At least 101 hostages have been in captivity for a year, and several have been returned in body bags. After a year, every second counts. Their lives are in constant danger, and the world needs to understand that.”
‘Stop the war immediately – peace is possible’
Maoz Inon’s parents, Bilha, 75, and Yaakov, 78, lived just a few hundred metres from the Gaza border and were killed within the first few hours of the 7 October attack. Despite his loss, Maoz and his brother Magen have teamed up with Palestinian peacemakers, travelling the world with a message of peace.
The family lost contact with Bilha and Yaakov at 7.50am when the rockets began raining down on Israeli communities near Gaza. Later that day, it emerged that their home had been burned to the ground with the couple, in their seventies, still inside.
Maoz describes his loss as so strong it is a “physical pain”.
“It feels like you’re drowning in an ocean of sorrow, your body broken into so many pieces,” he tells The Independent.
But despite the devastation, Maoz says his parents had prepared them for such a moment and the family immediately shared a “universal message that we are not seeking revenge”.
“Our parents believed that peace and inclusion would make next year better. They encouraged us to dream big, and now our dream is reconciliation.
“If we really want the hostages to be returned we must put all our pressure on the Israeli government and we must stop the war immediately.”
He tells The Independent he fears it is in the Israeli government’s interest that the hostages die “to help them to dehumanise not just the people of Gaza, but Palestinians and Arabs, and to help them continue this war of revenge”.
And so since 8 October, Maoz and his brother have used their platform to promote a single message: peace between Israelis and Palestinians and across the whole region. He has called on governments to do more than just negotiate hostage prisoner truce deals, but to support an actual peace process. He has teamed up with Palestinian peacemaker Aziz Abu Sarah, to offer an alternative vision of hope for the entire region.
“Those who believe bombs will bring quiet, and war will bring security are not just optimistic, they are naive. The only way to achieve safety is through conflict resolution and peace agreements, as history has shown with Egypt and Jordan.
“If we continue down the path of war, the consequences will be beyond imagination.”