Relatives of five families held in Gaza tell Haaretz about the worst four weeks of their lives

239 hostages have been held by Hamas in Gaza for over a month; the state of their health is unclear, as are the conditions of their confinement. In some cases entire families – parents and children, grandfathers and grandmothers – are being held by the terror group.

Relatives of five families told Haaretz about their endless worries over the harrowing October.

The Bibas family, abducted from Nir Oz | The parents Yarden and Shiri, the children Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months

At 6:30 A.M. on October 7, Yarden Bibas sent a photo of his two children – 4-year-old Ariel and baby Kfir – in the safe room of their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz. “Here we go again,” he wrote, referring to the incoming rockets from the Gaza Strip.

His sister, Ofri Bibas Levy, read the message in her new home in the Golan Heights, where she and her family had moved in the late summer after several years at Kibbutz Re’im not far from Nir Oz.

“Yarden and Shiri built their home in Nir Oz four years ago, and they’re used to rounds of rockets,” says Bibas Levy, who never left Kibbutz Re’im’s WhatsApp group. That Saturday morning, this is where she read about an incursion by terrorists.

“They talked about gunfire, somebody wounded, somebody killed, terrorists at the kibbutz. I realized that something different was going on there,” Bibas Levy says. She told her brother that there had been an incursion at Kibbutz Re’im, and asked if he had his handgun.

Bibas replied that he was hearing a lot of shooting and shouts in Arabic, and that he was afraid. “He wrote me that it felt like the end. I wrote back: “Shut up, what are you, crazy? Calm down. Everything will be all right.”

The siblings continued to chat. Bibas described the challenge of keeping the little ones quiet in the safe room. At around 9:30 he wrote to his sister and his parents that he loved them, and at 9:43 he sent his last message: Terrorists had entered their home.

Hours later a famous video was published: Shiri Bibas in captivity carrying the two boys in her arms. “Since then we know nothing,” her sister-in-law says.

For days the family didn’t know how Yarden was doing. That Tuesday, his birthday, photos of him were found being led to Gaza, bleeding, with a terrorist beside him holding a bloody hammer.

“On the first day I was sure that Yarden was lying in the safe room murdered,” his sister says. “After that there was a sliver of hope that he was kidnapped. Then we saw the photos of him wounded – and we don’t know how bad the wound is,” his sister says.

On Sunday, Bibas Levy arrived at the family’s home on Nir Oz and saw the terrorists’ devastation. “They didn’t leave a single drawer in place,” she says. “They opened every zipper in every bag. They shot the dog, whose blood was still in the living room. The smell was awful even though the carcass had been removed.”

Shiri, who grew up in Nir Oz, met Yarden through mutual friends. One of them is David Cunio, who was also abducted. Shiri worked in education but a few years ago switched over to the kibbutz’s accounting department.

Yarden, born on Kibbutz Tze’elim to the southeast, is a welder and worked in Ashkelon, the major city closest to Gaza. Shiri’s parents, Margit and Yossi Silverman, also lived in Nir Oz, until they were murdered that Saturday.

Bibas Levy describes Shiri and Yarden as very devoted parents. “Yarden is a big and imposing guy, like a big teddy bear – very sensitive, caring, funny. Anybody who sees him falls in love with his eyes and smile,” she says.

“Shiri is a delicate type. She always wanted to be a mother; she’s very devoted to the children. They’re always her top priority. She runs the family. Everything runs through her.”

Around the world, the pictures of the two redheaded boys have become a symbol of the cruelty of kidnapping children. “There are so many feelings: worry, uncertainty, helplessness, sometimes anger. Why are they still there?” Bibas Levy says. “Kfir is a baby, he shouldn’t be there. Ariel is a boy. That’s not part of war.”

“In the last few days I’ve been really angry because Israel is making humanitarian gestures while we get no information about their medical condition. I understand the need to seek legitimacy around the world, but we’re giving and getting nothing in return.

“It’s a great worry to think about 4-year-old Ariel underground for a month not playing, not moving. Kfir is still mostly bottle-fed. In the photo Ariel has a pacifier, but not Kfir. I don’t know if she managed to grab a pacifier for him, or if they have diapers.

“I’m thinking a lot about Shiri, who needs to hold all this together and be resilient. I don’t know if she knows what happened to Yarden.

“And of course I’m thinking about Yarden. I don’t know if they’re together. I’m assuming that Yarden isn’t with them. He’s probably going crazy with worry for the family. Every day it feels like it will take twice as long to bring them back.”

Bibas Levy notes that over the past two years, Ariel hadn’t gained any weight and was under medical supervision. “He has no reserves. If he doesn’t eat right, he could easily reach malnutrition.”

And now he’s a month in. “Time flies from day to day, and to them time feels like an eternity,” Bibas Levy says. “It’s a tenth of Kfir’s life. We miss them a lot. This is a normal family, and their life stopped in one moment.”

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The Munder family, abducted from Nir Oz | Parents Avraham and Ruti, their daughter Keren and her son Ohad, 9

Kfar Sava resident Keren Munder grew up on Kibbutz Nir Oz. On the Thursday before Simhat Torah that Saturday, she left Kfar Sava, a Tel Aviv suburb, for the home of her parents, Avraham and Ruti Munder. Her son, 9-year-old Ohad, was with her.

But the holiday became a nightmare. The four members of the family were abducted to Gaza, and nothing is known about their situation since. Ohad actually turned 9 in captivity.

Keren, who works in special education, lives with Ohad and her partner, Avi Zikri. On October 7, she and Ohad had planned to return home.

“On Saturday morning, when the missiles began falling, Avi says that Keren reassured him that they were in the safe room and everything was fine,” says Eyal Mor, Avraham and Ruti’s nephew and Keren’s cousin. “At 9:40 her phone battery ran out and Avi called her father, Avraham. He answered that he couldn’t talk and hung up.”

A relative who called Ruti received a similar answer. It later emerged that at around 11 that morning the family’s phones were geolocated to Gaza.

“There were no signs of struggle or blood in the house. They were taken on Avraham’s Kalnoit electric scooter,” Mor says. “Amazingly, their house wasn’t set on fire. It turns out the terrorists used it as a war room. They drank coffee there.”

For years Avraham worked at the Nirlat paint factory, and as a pensioner he worked at the kibbutz laundry. Ruti worked at the kibbutz grocery store and the hairdresser’s.

“They’re a couple who loved to host people. They would always host volunteers who stayed at the kibbutz,” Mor says.

Ohad was their only grandchild, and his relationship with his grandparents was warm and loving. Mor says Ohad is a gifted kid who loves to play tennis and Rubik’s Cube, and that they shared a love for the Be’er Sheva soccer team.

Roy Munder, Keren’s brother who also lived at Nir Oz, was murdered by Hamas. Roy co-headed the Israeli fan club of the English soccer team Liverpool FC. Many fans attended his funeral at Kibbutz Metzer in the north.

After the abduction, members of the family joined the organization Bring Them Home Now. “Our role is to ensure that the hostage issue doesn’t drop off the agenda,” Mor says. “We know that the whole world is engaging with the pictures from Gaza and forgetting how it all began.”

As the ground offensive continues, they fear that their loved ones will be harmed. “Everybody who’s talking with us says the ground offensive in Gaza increases the chances of freeing them, because Hamas has no interest in doing a deal unless there’s a sword at its neck,” Mor says. “It doesn’t care about the people or its prisoners [in Israeli jails].”

He’s frustrated by the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and by the fact that the Red Cross hasn’t visited the hostages. And he thinks there should be no cease-fire without a release of the hostages, or at least a humanitarian gesture.

“I’m constantly thinking about them. Are they alone? Together? What do they eat? Where are they sitting? What do they do all day?” Mor asks.

“Ohad wears glasses that he can’t see without. We hope he has his glasses, but what if they were broken or he didn’t take them? Avraham is old and not healthy. It’s impossible to believe that three generations have been sitting tens of meters underground for an entire month.”

The Cunio-Aloni family, abducted from Nir Oz | Parents David and Sharon Cunio, and their 3-year-old twin daughters Emma and Yuli | Sharon's sister, Daniel Aloni, and her 5-year-old daughter Amelia | Other family members who were kidnapped: David's brother, Ariel Cunio, his partner Arbel Yahud and her brother Dolev Yahud

The Aloni siblings have always been close, and even after they started families of their own, 45-year-old Danielle Aloni, middle brother Moran and 34-year-old sister Sharon maintained a warm relationship and often spent time together, along with their children.

That was also the case on Thursday October 5, when Danielle and Moran went with their daughters to an amusement park. The next day Danielle and 5-year-old daughter Amelia went to Kibbutz Nir Oz to spend the holiday with Sharon, her husband David Cunio and their 3-year-old twin daughters Emma and Yuli. All six were abducted to Gaza.

“My sister is a person with a big heart, very giving, always trying to help. She loves yoga and is very funny,” Moran says about Danielle, the single mother of Amelia, whom Moran describes as a happy and very intelligent child. Sharon’s husband David grew up on Nir Oz, where his parents, siblings and grandmother live.

One of David’s brothers was saved with his family, and another, Ariel Cunio, was abducted along with his girlfriend, Arbel Yahud. “Sharon and I became closer in recent years,” Moran says.

“When she was younger, she was a person with a lot of stress. After she met David, the most typical kibbutznik, she became much calmer.”

Moran lives in Rehovot southeast of Tel Aviv, near his parents and Danielle, who live in Yavneh. That Saturday morning he woke up as the rockets rained down.

“We immediately checked with Danielle and Sharon about what was happening. They said they didn’t know there were terrorists on the kibbutz, and they were in the safe room,” Moran says.

“We were in touch on WhatsApp. At around 9 they wrote that there were terrorists in the neighbors’ house. In retrospect, I realize that they were hiding a lot from us. They heard screams, gunfire, and then silence.”

At around 9:30 Sharon wrote to the family that she heard terrorists in the house. “There was an hour and a half of silence. You can imagine what my parents and I were going through,” Moran says.

“At 11 she sent a voice message that [the terrorists] were burning down the house; smoke was coming in under the door. They said they didn’t know if they would come out of this and they loved us. Sharon managed to send me her location and a last message at 11:20: “Save us, we’re dying.”

In the days after the massacre the family collected scraps of information. In one video they thought they saw David Cunio taken on a cart with Sharon and one of the girls. Later a survivor said that, at the abduction stage, she had been put on a truck, where she saw David and Sharon with one of the twins.

According to her, David said he had gone out of the safe room with both twins. Two days later, the family received a message that all six were considered hostages. Then the family received no information until about a week ago: Hamas released the video with three kidnapped women in which Aloni is the main speaker.

“It’s pain, first of all, seeing my sister there, realizing the situation she’s in, the huge distress,” Moran says. “Then come more rational thoughts that analyze the situation; for example, her mentioning of Netanyahu’s speech shows that the video was filmed now, and her anger shows that she has energy and isn’t broken.”

As time passes, the absence of his two sisters looms larger. “It was my sister Danielle who was around our parents, who were very attached to Amelia. Suddenly they aren’t there. Suddenly you begin to comprehend the hole. It’s not even death, it’s ‘on hold.’ It’s like an endless shivah week of mourning,” he says.

“It’s powerlessness and a lot of guilt. I laugh with my daughter and feel guilty because my sister can’t laugh with her daughter. I eat dinner and feel guilty because I think about what my sister and her daughter are eating.

“I think that at some stage last week it turned into anger – at everything. It’s anger at the fact that they’re still there. At first there was optimism – there’s no way that so many people will be there for such a long time.

“It’s anger at the poison that’s flowing in the government. And mainly, I try to figure out how I can save energy and build energy for this thing so I can stay strong.”

The Alziadna family, abducted from Kibbutz Holit | Father Yusuf Hamis Alziadna and his children, 22-year-old Hamza and 18-year-old Bilal and 17-year-old Aisha

Yusuf Hamis Alziadna, 53, a Bedouin from Rahat well east of Gaza, was working at Kibbutz Holit’s cowshed on October 7, as he did every Saturday. Alziadna operated the cowshed with his two sons – 22-year-old Hamza and 18-year-old Bilal – and his 17-year-old daughter, Aisha. They prepared the feed for the cows, fed them and milked them.

The terrorists who entered the kibbutz abducted Hamza and Bilal, filmed the kidnapping and immediately uploaded the video online. The fate of Aisha and her father Yusuf was unknown for three weeks. Then, says Yusuf’s brother Ali Alziadna, the army analyzed footage from cameras near the border: All four members of the family were being led into Gaza.

The work at the cowshed has supported Yusuf’s family for 17 years. He is married to two wives and has 18 children and 20 grandchildren. Hamza, who is married with two children, joined his father at the cowshed four years ago, while Bilal and Aisha joined recently. Aisha is due to get married in a few months.

Ali Alziadna, a former policeman, says his brother is a pillar of the extended family and the community. “Yusuf is a genial person and loves everyone, one of the best in the clan. He resolves conflicts and problems, and takes care of everyone like a brother and a friend,” Ali says.

“He’s a sterling human being. We hope we will see him well, that he will return to the bosom of his family and go back to being the way he was then, even though he is experiencing difficult days now.”

Ali is especially worried because Yusuf has diabetes and it’s not clear if he has access to medication. “Every night that goes by is very difficult for us. We are hoping they are still in good health, but we don’t know what is happening with them,” Ali says.

“Every time we hear a boom we say, oy, let’s hope it isn’t anywhere near the hostages. And we hope this will stop when our children and all the hostages come home.”

The Shoham-Avigdori-Haran family, abducted from Be'eri | Parents Tal and Adi Shoham, and their children 8-year-old Naveh and 3-year-old Yahel | Adi's mother Shoshan Haran | Shoshan's sister-in-law Sharon Avigdori and her 12-year-old daughter Noam | Other relatives, Judith and Natalie Raanan were the first hostages to be freed

The Haran family is one of the best-known families on Kibbutz Be’eri. Shoshan Haran’s parents, Avraham and Rina Havron, helped found the community. Her husband, Avshalom, was a senior local official until 2018 and a chairman of Kibbutz Be’eri.

Shoshan, a doctor of botanical science, is the founder and CEO of Fair Planet, an agricultural startup that aims to help alleviate hunger around the world. The couple have three grown children: Yuval, Shaked and Adi, who was abducted with her family.

Avshalom and Shoshan Haran’s home on Kibbutz Be’eri was one of the Avigdoris’ favorite places to visit. Sharon Avigdori would come there often with her family to visit her brother.

“It’s a very pastoral place, where you come to hang out and take it easy,” says her husband, Chen Avigdori. Chen and Sharon’s daughter, 12-year-old Noam, loved to play with Avshalom and Shoshan’s grandchildren, 8-year-old Naveh and 3-year-old Yahel, the children of Adi and Tal Shoham.

The Shoham family lives in Ma’aleh Tzviya, a community in northern Israel, and for Simhat Torah the family gathered to celebrate together at Be’eri. “Sharon drove down there with Noam, but at the last minute our son didn’t want to join them and I stayed home with him,” says Chen Avigdori, a screenwriter and editor of television series who lives in Hod Hasharon near Tel Aviv.

That proved fateful: Avshalom was murdered on October 7, and the other family members at the house were abducted to Gaza.

Avigdori says that at around 9 A.M. his wife informed him that everyone was together in the safe room and everything was fine. Avshalom, however, wrote that they were a bit worried. At 11 they sent a message on WhatsApp: “We’re in big trouble, we love you.” Then the connection went dead.

A few days later, the extended family received a message that Shoshan Haran, her daughter Adi, her husband Tal and the two small children Nava and Yahel had been abducted to Gaza. For nearly two weeks Sharon and Noam Avigdori were considered missing, until the army informed the family that they had all been kidnapped.

“The lack of information about the missing was unbearable,” Avigdori says. “Most important for us was to obtain that information. The moment we learned that their status was kidnapped, we moved into action mode, doing everything to free them.”

Sharon is a drama therapist who specializes in working with young autistic children. “Sharon is an amazing person. People always laugh at me that I work at a fun job, taking the kids to see filming going on, and they meet famous people,” Avigdori says.

“But Sharon is the one who changes the world. She has a lot of empathy and patience, exactly what’s needed to try to get the children out of their autism bubble.”

Avigdori describes his daughter, Noam, who only recently celebrated her 12th birthday, as “a typical girl of her age, loving TikTok and shopping malls. She has crazy charisma and masses of friends. The house is a railroad station. We reached the situation where she explains all her friends to me on a whiteboard, which served as a scene in ‘Miller Junction’” – a popular Israeli sitcom.

Since the kidnappings, Avgdori and the extended family have been busy giving media interviews in their efforts to bring their loved ones back home.

“My feeling is that we need to fight more loudly and less politely. ... There are all kinds of ideas about what needs to be done, how to do it, and the tones we need to speak in,” Avigdori says.

“We’re acting with one clear goal: not to let the issue disappear from the public agenda, not to let the government throw sand in the public’s eyes by saying that we’re now crushing Hamas and then we’ll deal with the hostages.

“All people who consider themselves humane have to do something to free them. Tie a yellow ribbon, call a member of [the U.S.] Congress. This is the only serious thing the country should be addressing as a strategic goal. What kind of country will it be if that doesn’t happen?”