Relatives of Israeli hostages terrified as Israel-Hamas truce is in jeopardy

Family of Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi, whose wife and two daughters were killed on October 7 attack, react as they watch the live broadcast of him being released from Hamas captivity in Gaza, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on February 8, 2025, as part of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
| Photo Credit: AP

After 16 months of excruciating uncertainty, Idit Ohel finally received word this week that her 24-year-old son, a hostage in Gaza, is still alive.

She said she fainted upon hearing the brutal details of his captivity from freed hostages who had been held with him by Hamas since October 7, 2023. Bound by chains in an underground tunnel, Alon Ohel has subsisted on a piece of bread or less each day.

“He hasn’t seen sunlight in 493 days,” she told presspersons on Monday.

As the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas seems increasingly at risk of falling apart — Hamas says it will not free three hostages on Saturday as planned, and Israel says it’s ready to resume the war if it doesn’t — families of the hostages are struggling to maintain hope. They are pleading with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to give up on the ceasefire framework, and to speed up the timeline of releases if possible.

Their worries about the ceasefire collapsing have been exacerbated by President Donald Trump’s demand that all of the hostages be freed by Saturday — and his insistence that Gaza be emptied of all Palestinians and redeveloped as a tourist enclave controlled by the United States.

Families terrified

The emaciated state of three hostages released last Saturday has infuriated Israelis and terrified families of the remaining hostages, especially as more details come out about the conditions of their captivity.

The situation is especially difficult for relatives of hostages who are not on the list of 33 hostages expected to be released in the ceasefire’s first, six-week phase, which began on January 19. The agreement requires Israel to free 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, whose families are also worried about how their enemy treats them.

Two hostages released on Saturday, Or Levy and Eli Sharabi, were held together with Alon Ohel, and a fourth hostage, Eliya Cohen. The four were held underground since their kidnapping, Idit Ohel said.

Cohen is expected to be released in the ceasefire’s first stage; Ohel would be freed in the second stage, if Israel and Hamas reach that point.

Levy, Ohel, and Cohen were kidnapped from a bomb shelter near a music festival in southern Israel, along with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli who was killed in captivity in August.

“It breaks my heart to know he was chained and to know what happened to him in the tunnels from people in the tunnels,” Cohen’s fiancée, Ziv Abud, 27, said on Tuesday.

The returned hostages said that Cohen had lost more than 20 kg and had a bullet in his leg that did not receive medical attention. While they were with him, Cohen was unaware that Abud had survived the Hamas attack on the bomb shelter where they were hiding.

During the October 7 attack, militants tossed grenades and sprayed bullets inside the concrete bomb shelter near the music festival, where almost 30 people had crammed inside. At least 16 people inside the shelter were killed.

Abud said she was protected by the crush of bodies above her. Going in and out of consciousness, she spent hours laying beneath the bodies of her nephew and his girlfriend.

For families of hostages who are not scheduled for release in the first phase of the ceasefire, its uncertainty is even more difficult to bear.

Talks on second phase

Israel and Hamas were set last week to begin talks on a second phase of the ceasefire that would include an end to the war and the release of the remaining hostages. But those efforts have been frozen while the two sides trade accusations about whether the other is living up to the terms of the first phase.

Tamir Nimrodi, 20, an Israeli soldier kidnapped from his post at a main crossing between Israel and Gaza, is not on the list to be freed in the first stage. His mother, Herut, said Hamas’s plan to delay the next hostage release came as a shock.

It’s been difficult watching the hostage releases over the past few weeks, Nimrodi said, especially the emotional videos of hostages reuniting with their families.

On the one hand, each reunion is a step closer to bringing back her son. But Nimrodi does not know if her son, who also holds German citizenship, is alive. The other two soldiers he was kidnapped with were killed.

According to Israeli media, returning hostages have provided proof of life for at least seven Israeli hostages, including Cohen and Ohel.

Idit Ohel received the information about her son’s condition less than an hour before she went on Israel’s Channel 12 news program earlier this week. She sat at the news desk sobbing on live TV, pleading with the government to continue to the second stage of the ceasefire and bring all of the hostages home as soon as possible.

Alon, who also has German and Serbian citizenship, is a talented pianist. The family has placed pianos across Israel in his honour, many of which are yellow, the colour associated with the struggle for the hostages.

The family marked Alon’s second birthday in captivity on Monday evening in Tel Aviv, where his mother addressed the Israeli government. “After all the sights you saw, after all the testimonies you heard from the survivors of captivity, how do you allow this situation to continue?” she said.