Hostage Release Process a ‘Roller-Coaster’

For several months, Dina Fuchs-Beresin has worn bracelets bearing the names of five Israeli women held hostage by Hamas — Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa, and Agam Berger.

The five were abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, when terrorists overran their Israel Defense Forces observation post at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, roughly 875 yards from the Gaza fence.

Fuchs-Beresin, a former journalist and long-time Jewish communal professional in Atlanta, decided that these women — unarmed observers whose unit reported suspicious Hamas movements in advance of Oct. 7 — “deserved to have us know their names.”

Get The AJT Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

“They did everything right,” she said. “They told their superiors. They told their families. They alerted what they saw . . . and it didn’t help them.”

Fuchs-Beresin ordered the bracelets from the online marketplace Etsy and has made a point of looking at each of the names every day as she places them on her wrist.

On that “Black Sabbath,” as some Israelis call it, 1,200 men, women, and children were slaughtered in terrorist attacks on kibbutzim, towns, and an outdoor music festival in the “Gaza envelope.”

Approximately 250 men, women, and children — including the bodies of some already dead — were kidnapped and driven into Gaza. As of Jan. 27, some 90 men, women, and children remained captives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and company.

The first phase of the current ceasefire calls for the release of 33 hostages in exchange for a much larger number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Previous reports were that 25 of the 33 on the initial list were alive.

Three women — Emily Damari, Doron Steinbrecher, and Rami Goren — were released when the agreement took effect Jan. 19.

Albag, Ariev, Levy, and Gilboa were freed Jan. 25, after 477 days in captivity. Israeli media report that, per a list the government received from Hamas, Berger will be released soon, possibly on Jan. 30.

According to those reports, Arbel Yehud and another hostage would be released the same day as Berger and that three more hostages would be freed on Feb. 1.

One name mentioned as possibly being freed in coming days is Keith Siegel, a native of North Carolina, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza with his wife, Aviva. She was freed Nov. 26, 2023, in an exchange of hostages for jailed Palestinians.

Damari reportedly asked her captors to first free Siegel, whose daughter is a close friend from their childhoods at Kfar Aza.

The Siegels’ family was one of three that spoke at a rally in support of the hostages, at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue on Oct. 30, 2023.

Another family represented at that event came from the Israeli side of my family tree. I have written about them often in this space over the past 16 months.

At the time of that rally, funerals had been held for three older family members murdered at Kibbutz Be’eri and seven were hostages in Gaza. Six of the seven, women and children, were freed in a Nov. 25, 2023, exchange. The seventh, Tal Shoham, a husband and father, is on the list of 33. His 40th birthday is Jan. 30.

A few days after the ceasefire took effect, I heard a suggestion that the first hostage release warranted some sort of local celebratory event.

Don’t get me wrong.

The smiles, the tears, and the hugs between the young women and their families are rays of sunshine cutting through an otherwise gloomy sky. Their families have earned the right to celebrate.

But dozens of hostages remain in Gaza.

Not all will return alive.

Some will emerge to learn of family and friends murdered on Oct. 7.
Some will be reunited with family and friends who themselves were kidnapped and later freed.

Some will learn of family and friends murdered in Gaza by their captors.
None of them should have been there in the first place.

Oct. 7 would not have happened without intelligence, military, and political failures that, we are reminded, led to the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

In a letter stating his intention to resign in March, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi wrote: “On the morning of October 7, under my command, the IDF failed in its mission to protect Israel’s citizens . . . My responsibility for this terrible failure accompanies me every day, every hour, and will remain with me for the rest of my life.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown no indication that he will follow Halevi’s example. His governing coalition in the Knesset recently rejected a proposal to establish a national commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7 attacks.

Speaking to CNN a couple of days before the ceasefire took effect, Zvika Klein, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, called the process “a roller coaster . . . There are so many factors that could cause the agreement to collapse — one rocket, one misstep, or one wrong decision.”

This is the fear of the hostage families, particularly those on the initial list of 33 to be freed. “These families are living through unimaginable pain. This is not just a political crisis; it is deeply personal for them and for all Israelis,” Klein said.

The bracelets worn by Fuchs-Beresin are just one example of how the hostages also have become a personal concern in Atlanta’s Jewish community.

Originally published at https://www.atlantajewishtimes.com on January 28, 2025.