“Our children are in danger,” said Herout Nimrodi, whose son Tamir, Israeli soldier kidnapped at the age of 18 is still captive in the Gaza Strip. “We don’t know much but one thing that is certain is that military pressure on Gaza endangers hostages,” she said.
His eldest son of a siblings of three children, was captured on October 7, 2023 in a base on the edge of Gaza, while “was in pajamas and without weapons”. The young man, whom she describes as “joyful, curious, altruistic, creative”, was a soldier in the unity of Cogat, an organization of the Ministry of Defense supervising civil activities in the Palestinian territories.
He had time to send a message to his mother evoking the rocket shots, but 20 minutes after this call, he was removed with two other soldiers, killed two months later in Gaza, in conditions not yet completely elucidated.
“What worked are negotiations”
HEROUT NIMRODI has not received any signs of his son since the video of his abduction broadcast by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The truce having held from January 19 to March 17 allowed the return of 33 Israeli hostages, including eight in coffins, in exchange for the release of some 1,800 Palestinians held by Israel. But on March 18, after several weeks of disagreement with Hamas on how to extend the ceasefire, Israel resumed large-scale military operations in the Gaza Strip, starting with intense bombardments.
-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government support, against the advice of most families and relatives of hostages that an increased military pressure is the only way to force Hamas to make hostages, dead or alive, still captive in Gaza. Of the 251 hostages removed during the attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023, 58 are still retained in Gaza, including 34 dead according to the Israeli army.
“For a year and a half, it did not work, what worked are negotiations,” said Herout Nimrodi, deploring, like Israeli President Israac Herzog on March 25 that “the question of hostages [ne soit] plus priority in Israel ”. Tamir Nimrodi, who was 20 years old in captivity, is one of the 24 alleged hostages still alive in Gaza, but one of the few that no proof of life has been provided since his abduction.
“The hostages undergo the consequences”
HEROUT NIMRODI regularly participates in the rallies of hostage families in Tel Aviv. For Dani Miran, a pillar of gatherings for hostages, including the 48 -year -old son Omri, was removed from his home at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, “the fear that our hostages be affected by Israeli strikes is daily”. Dani Miran, who is going to be 80 years old, says that “the hostages that have returned testified that when the Israeli army attacks in Gaza, the hostages undergo the consequences”.
“I want to take Omri in my arms and tell him how all the people fight so that all the hostages come back in one go,” he said at the microphone during the weekly rally on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv. A few days before the Jewish Passover, a celebration which celebrates the rediscovered freedom of the Hebrews after slavery in Egypt, according to the Bible, Herout Nimrodi, whose first name Hert means “freedom”, awaits his son.
