With each new official announcement concerning the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the same anxiety paralyzes Julia*: this time, will her nephew be on the list of the dead? For eleven months, this sixty-year-old has lived in expectation, dependent on the terrible count by the Israeli authorities, who regularly announce that they have found the lifeless bodies of civilians kidnapped during the terrorist attacks of October 7. On Saturday, August 31, six hostages were found dead in the south of the Gaza Strip, executed “with a bullet in the back of the head,” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “For two days, I have been on sedatives, because I can’t sleep. We have just spent 24 hours waiting to know the names of these hostages, hoping that our nephew is not among them,” this Franco-Israeli confided to L’Express. Terrified that too much media coverage could harm the young man’s detention conditions, Julia prefers to remain anonymous and not to disclose her nephew’s first name. “Our life is nothing more than that. Doubts, guilt, questions about how to help, how to act. In short, we have all stopped living for almost a year,” she sighs.
Her daily life was turned upside down on the morning of October 7, 2023, when she learned from her sister that her nephew, who was participating in the Tribe of Nova festival on the border of the Gaza Strip, was missing. Half an hour later, the family accessed a video in which the thirty-year-old could be seen, kidnapped by members of Hamas. “The world collapsed for us. We could not imagine the scale of the attack, or that this hostage-taking would last so long,” explains Julia. Since then, the retiree has stopped going out, playing sports, dancing – her favorite activity. “I don’t have the heart for it anymore,” she says. Instead, the sixty-year-old mobilizes all imaginable resources to relieve her loved ones. From France, she raises funds to support her nephew’s family – most of whom have stopped working, unable to concentrate on their professional tasks -, multiplies the phone calls with her sister, directs her to the psychological and social support available for the families of hostages. On the phone, she has replaced, for weeks, the usual “How are you?”, with more appropriate “Did you manage to sleep?”.
Until last November, Julia accepted some interviews in French media, met with association presidents, political or media personalities, participated in mobilizations with other families of hostages living in France. Alas, she lists the names of all those she asked for help. “I was contacted by the former French ambassador to Israel, I went to see the Red Cross, Bernard Cazeneuve, Edouard Philippe, Xavier Bertrand… I even met advisers from the Elysée or stars like Natalie Portman. But I quickly understood that despite their support, they couldn’t do much,” she murmurs. At the end of the year, when Hamas finally freed several hostages, she decided to keep a low profile. “You never know, maybe it’s better not to make too many waves… Hoping that they finally release him,” hopes Julia.
“Our greatest fear is that we will forget”
Like her, many relatives of French hostages have mobilized to try to raise awareness about the disappearance of their family members. “Speaking on all the TV shows was my way of getting involved,” says Olivier, whose second cousin Ofer Kalderon, kidnapped on October 7 with his children Erez and Sahar, is still being held by Hamas. The man still remembers the voice note sent by a cousin on the family WhatsApp group, just hours after the attacks. “He told us he had ‘good news’: there was proof that Ofer and his children had been taken hostage, and not killed. It was a terrible shock for the family, but we were able to hold on to this hope of finding them alive,” he recalls. The days following this announcement were blurry, marked by terrible news. “We saw the number of deaths increase, without stopping. Then we learned that my cousin Carmela, 80 years old, and her granddaughter Noya, 12 years old, had been killed in their kibbutz. Their bodies were found completely burned, entwined with each other,” says Olivier.
For the Frenchman, these details, although difficult, must be heard. “Today, there are people who put what happened into perspective, who minimize, who forget. So I am here to remind people of this, and explain the human stories behind the political analyses,” he insists. Since October 7, he estimates that he has been interviewed “at least 80 times” by French media. Despite his weariness, he continues to tell his family’s story on sets, on the radio, in front of the National Assembly, the Senate, the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), in front of politicians, associations, civil society figures, and even Pope Francis. “Our greatest fear is that we will forget,” confides his cousin Fabien, who is also in high demand by the media.
While the situation seems more blocked than ever, the latter does not see himself returning home “as if nothing had happened”. Since October 7, he has been at all the mobilizations. During the November 11 ceremony in Verrières-le-Buisson, a town in Essonne where he lives, Fabien did not hesitate to bring back a photo of the hostages, brandished like a banner. “A lady I did not know, a practicing Catholic, offered to help me carry them. It was very symbolic, it did me a lot of good”, he says. In France, he also met other families of hostages, like Ayelet Samerano, whose son Jonathan was kidnapped by Hamas during the Tribe of Nova festival.
Living mostly in Israel, this mother has been to Paris three times since October 7, to tell her son’s story and meet several political figures and community leaders. “These meetings were very important to me, they brought me a lot of comfort. I had the feeling that France had not forgotten us, and that the French understood what we had experienced, particularly through the terrorist attacks they recently suffered on their soil,” she explained to L’Express. Exactly 57 days after her son’s disappearance, Israeli authorities found videos of the festival, in which the body of the young man can be seen being taken away by members of Hamas. “They think he is dead, but they can’t prove it. So I continue to hope. We must not forget him,” Ayelet asks.
“We must act”
For her, and for hundreds of other relatives of hostages, many French Jewish associations and organizations continue to get involved, particularly financially. The United Jewish Social Fund (FSJU) contributed 100,000 euros to the Hostage Forum, set up in Tel Aviv to support the victims. “We have also participated in various family support programs and funded scholarships for affected Israeli students. They need financial, media and social support,” summarizes Ariel Goldmann, president of the FSJU. Every Friday, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) also continues to demonstrate in Paris to pay tribute to the hostages. Fabien and Olivier, for their part, created the association Vies brisées – 7 octobre, which now has “more than 150 members” and with which they have managed to raise “several thousand euros.”
In France, the two cousins felt “real support” from the population and part of the political class during the first weeks following the attack. “We were received by the Macron couple and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Stéphane Séjourné, there was the tribute at the Invalides, hundreds of messages of support”, lists Olivier. But since then, the man has also felt a wave of anti-Semitism rising. He is now wary on public transport, where he regularly covers his “Bring them home now” t-shirt. [NDLR : Ramenez-les à la maison, maintenant] by a jacket. “Netanyahu’s hatred turned into hatred of Israel, then into hatred of Jews in general,” he regrets.
On the sets, he tries to avoid political questions from the commentators, and refrains from any analysis of the situation in Israel, where the opposition leader and some hostage families called for a general strike on Sunday, September 1, urging the government to reach an agreement with Hamas to free the last captives. “I am not legitimate to give my opinion on this. What I simply want to remind is that my loved ones were innocent civilians, who had asked nothing of anyone,” Olivier insists. “Above all, we must not forget that Ofer is out there, somewhere. We must act, before the next name on the list of the dead is him,” he demands.
*The first name has been changed.
.