Women Wage Peace demand action for Gaza hostages amid ongoing war against Hamas - opinion

During the first days of the war, the streets were deserted, and the few people who passed by did not say a word. Silence, shock, depression. 

Over 3,000 terrorists had invaded the towns, army bases, kibbutzim, and a music festival on the Gaza border, murdering 1,140 people – including 816 civilians – and taking 250 hostages. I have never felt so vulnerable. We continued to be attacked by missiles and we had no one to trust, neither the government nor the army. We were alone, unprotected, fearing that terrorists had infiltrated Tel Aviv and were waiting for the moment to attack.

Vivian Silver, one of the women I admire most in our movement, Women Wage Peace, was taken hostage. So was the mother of a friend, Ditza Heiman. I have been an activist for seven years, advocating with them for an agreed peace with the Palestinian people, a better future for all. 

The government ignores the hostages

Someone posted a photo of two friends demonstrating in the Hostages Square with Vivian’s photo. The next day I met them and we decided that we would come every day and call on other women to join us, 10 women per day would suffice.

In the weeks that followed, people walked around the square, confused and desperate. Most of them were women. Some hugged us in anguish, others told us about their loved ones, victims of that terrible October 7. 

A mother came up and gave us the photo of her kidnapped daughter. Two girls came with a photo of their teacher. There we were, listening to their stories, with our posters of Vivian, Ditza, Itay, the son of Orit Svirsky, another friend murdered, and others, and with a large handwritten sign that read: “Bring them home – now.” But no one heard our call, nor the cries of the families.

A month later, the army told Vivian’s family that she was murdered on October 7. Hamas set fire to her house, and her remains were charred. Ditza returned in the first hostage exchange. Itay survived 99 days in captivity until he, too, was murdered.

Currently, 125 kidnapped people remain in Gaza, a quarter of them presumed dead. Day after day, a rota of women from our movement, dressed in white and turquoise, go wherever the families of the hostages call. Meanwhile, schools have reopened and people have returned to their offices and cafes.

Despite the 120,000 displaced from the Gaza and Lebanon borders, the majority have “learned” to live with the war, convincing themselves the horror is happening in a parallel world, on social networks and in the media, not just an hour and a half from Tel Aviv. The government accuses the families of those kidnapped of being leftists. The police disperse their demonstrations with violence, breaking in with horses and shooting putrid water from a tanker truck.

Now we join the families in blocking streets, we shout the kidnapped names and cry: “We want them alive, enough burials and coffins.” 

We do what we can to prevent society from getting used to it, from taking it as natural that the government ignores the hostages in the search for an impossible “absolute triumph.”

Almost daily, several more families are devastated by the news that their young have been killed in a war with no end in sight, while civilian casualties continue to mount in Gaza.

Enough bloodshed, we are all losing. Only dialogue and mutual recognition can pave the way for healing and a future of peace and security. We all deserve it.

The writer is a peace activist in Women Wage Peace.