Families Of Hostages Held In Gaza Despair As Ramadan Cease-Fire Deadline Passes
HuffPost
Israel's promise of “total victory” in the war against Hamas now rings hollow for many hostages' families after five emotionally draining months.
JERUSALEM (AP) — A brother contemplated suicide. A sister stopped going to school. A father barely speaks. With each passing day, the relatives of hostages held in Gaza since Oct. 7 face a deepening despair.
Their hopes were raised that a cease-fire deal was near to bring some of their loved ones home by the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that began Monday. But that informal deadline passed without any agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise of “total victory” in the war against Hamas now rings hollow for many hostages’ families after five emotionally draining months.
“We are reading the news every single minute. Egypt says something, the Qataris say something different, the Americans say a deal is close, Israel says it’s not,” said Sharon Kalderon, whose brother-in-law, Ofer, remains in captivity. “We try to read between the lines, but we haven’t heard anything about Ofer for months. Nothing that can help us breathe.”
When Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, they killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostages. Since then, Israel’s offensive has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and driven hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
