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Renana Gome-Jacob (50) has only one wish: “I hope my boys are somewhere far underground in a Hamas tunnel and are spared from the rocket attacks.” The Israeli ground offensive in Gaza is in full swing. Every night, rockets hit hundreds of targets in the Palestinian coastal strip. And somewhere in the middle of the deadly chaos, the terrorists hold Gome-Jacob’s sons captive.
Yagil, 12, and Or, 16, are two of the 80 hostages kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir’Oz on October 7. Since then: no sign of life. Recently, the news of the death of German hostage Shani Louk (†22) dampened the hopes of those left behind. Gome-Jacob is also terrified that her kidnapped children may not survive the horrors.
Blick meets the mother of three at a hotel in Eilat, southern Israel, the day after her 50th birthday. The Israeli government has temporarily housed the approximately 190 survivors from Nir’Oz here. “I was so hoping that this nightmare would be over on my birthday,” says Gome-Jacob, wiping tears from his dark eyes. But there is still no sign of Or and Yagil.
Yagil said, “Let me go, I’m just a child.”
After the terror alarm went off early in the morning, she spent two full hours on the phone with her boys. “I told them to stay calm and block the door in the shelter of the house,” Gome-Jacob said. She herself had spent the night with her partner in the neighboring kibbutz. “At one point I heard gunshots and Arabic voices on the phone. They broke through the protective door to my boys. Yagil said, “Let me go, I’m just a child.” That’s the last I heard from him.’
Hamas is holding more than 220 people hostage in Gaza, including at least 31 babies and children. “You shouldn’t be part of this game. “It’s so unfair,” says Renana Gome-Jacob. She misses the Tiktok sound from Yagil’s cell phone that used to bother her so much. And she knows how much force Or tried to block the door in the shelter. It wasn’t enough.
A few rooms away, Revital Yanay (44) sits on his bed and says in disbelief: “A few months ago, Ravid and I were on holiday here. I was heavily pregnant. And now Ravid is just gone.” Next to her on the bed lies Alma Jasmin, five months old, thick hair, an ignorant smile on her face.
Hamas also deported Ravid Katz, the baby’s father, to Gaza. “When the alarm went off and we heard shots, he ran outside to defend Nir’Oz. We hid in our neighbors’ shelter,” said Revital Yanay.
“We had to choose: suffocate or be shot.”
For almost ten hours she barely lifted Alma from her breast. “She wasn’t allowed to cry, the terrorists weren’t allowed to find us.” At one point, the armed men stormed into the house where Yanay was hiding. “They shot through the door and hit my neighbor’s dog and leg. But they didn’t open the door. So they just set the whole house on fire.”
The heat was unbearable. ‘I took everything off Alma, even her diapers. The shelter was full of smoke. I still had to get up because Alma started screaming as soon as we lay down.” At one point, Yanay and the neighbors couldn’t take it anymore. “We had to decide: do we want to suffocate or be shot.” They opened the window of the shelter. Only hours later did the soldiers arrive and rescue them from the chaos.
Revital Yanay’s tears well up in her eyes. Alma rolls onto her stomach and grins happily. “I have to breastfeed her, so I eat. I have to be there for them, that’s why I get up in the morning. But I don’t know how I will manage without Ravid,” says Revital. He always sang “Shir Ha’Emek” to Alma at night before she went to sleep, an Israeli song about the vast Jezreel Valley. “Now I’m going to sing the song until daddy comes back,” Yanay says and plants a big kiss on Alma’s forehead.
“We have 30,000 rabid dogs in our neighborhood”
Julian Cohen (76) sits with his dog Pepper downstairs in the hotel in the prayer room that the survivors of Nir’Oz have set up for their murdered and kidnapped relatives and friends. He knows: his partner Carole will never return. The Hamas criminals first murdered her and then her son and his three small children in cold blood. “The only thing that gives me comfort is that Carole never knew what happened to her son and his family,” Cohen said.
He also tells how he barricaded himself in the bomb shelter in his house. “First the terrorists came, but then unarmed people from Gaza came who ransacked our homes and took everything,” says Cohen. He saw with his own eyes a few parents, three children and an old woman cleaning up his kitchen with a stick.
Cohen, a passionate watchmaker and actually a Palestinian sympathizer, chooses clear words when speaking about Hamas: “If you have a rabid dog nearby, you should shoot it for your own protection. We have 30,000 rabid dogs next door.” Of course the Palestinians need their own state. “But it should not be ruled by murderers and monsters as it is now in Gaza.”
“We cannot give up our only homeland now.”
The man with the soft, deep voice says he has traveled extensively with Carole over the past seven years: Norway, South Africa, most recently Poland in early October. “We visited Auschwitz and said to each other afterwards: this must never happen again.” Less than a week later it happened.
Once the war is over, he wants to return to Nir’Oz. His parents are buried there, as are his murdered partner and his friends and neighbors. “I owe them this,” Cohen says. «So many Jews died for Israel. Your death should not be in vain. We cannot give up our only home now.”
Source: Blick
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
