Imagine that your daughter or sister has vanished. The last words you heard from her, more than one hundred days ago early in the morning of Oct. 7, were in a voice message, saying captors had caught her. Or imagine that you are on the phone with her for hours while she tries to evade armed terrorists, learn that she is shot and hear her captors through the phone say, “I will take her.” These are just snippets of the incredibly painful testimonies we heard from Simona Steinbrecher and Yarden Gonen, two Israeli women who addressed a crowded Brooklyn living room last week as part of a series of gatherings around the country arranged through the Hostagea and Missing Families Forum, about the last moments in which they had contact with their daughter and sister.
The families of hostages taken by Hamas are on this desperate tour to instill a sense of urgency among policymakers, influencers and everyday people to bring their loved ones home.
Hamas terrorists kidnapped Doron Steinbrecher from under her bed in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Romi Gonen was taken from the Tribe of Nova music festival, after her best friend was killed before her eyes. Accompanied by Amanda Damari, whose daughter Emily is also still held by Hamas, and Adi Marciano, whose daughter Noa, an IDF soldier, was captured by Hamas, which then showed her dead body in a video, these women are on a grim global tour, pleading with journalists, policymakers and everyday citizens to bear witness to these shocking abductions by terrorists. It is part of their ongoing effort to help bring them home.
The families of hostages taken by Hamas are on this desperate tour to instill a sense of urgency among policymakers, influencers and everyday people to bring their loved ones home in part because, in spite of supportive protests, many have faced a disturbing public response in the U.S.: minimization, justification and even outright distortion and denialism. Given the extensive, violent footage, some shared by Hamas…
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