‘The last one to return’ brings closure to Israeli society - opinion

In the following days, I struggled to find an answer to the ostensibly simple question: “How are you?” I adopted the answer “Yehiyeh tov” – “Things will be good.”

I believed it and still do. Life goes on, and although it will never be the same as it was before that Saturday – Simchat Torah, 2023 – I knew things would get better: because we had no choice. We could either give up and disappear – as our enemies so wanted – or fight back, carry on, and create something even better, the best form of revenge.

The question “How are you feeling?” this week is easier to answer. In one word: relieved.

On Monday, when the IDF announced that Gvili’s body had been found – buried in a cemetery in Gaza – I crossed his name off the list stuck to my front door before filing the piece of paper away. The list of hostages who returned, some to try to resume their lives, others for burial, got significantly shorter just before Simchat Torah in October of this year upon the return of the last 20 live hostages, with the help of US President Donald Trump.

Knowing there were no captives still struggling to survive starvation and torture in the terror tunnels enabled us all to breathe a bit more easily. But that list of names was a national “to-do list.” The slogan Ad hahatuf ha’aharon – “Until the last hostage” – was deeply ingrained in our national psyche.

I couldn’t help but also admire the strength of the special Military Rabbinate unit as well as the dentists who checked the bodies of some 250 terrorists, comparing dental records to help the identification process. My heart breaks when I think of the youngest hostage – Kfir Bibas, a baby so young that he didn’t even have teeth when he was snatched from his home with his mother, Shiri, and brother, Ariel, all murdered in Gaza.

We must also acknowledge the pain of the families of terror victims whose murderers were released in prisoner-hostage exchange deals.

WITH GVILI’S return, many Israelis spoke of Ron Arad, the IAF navigator who has been missing since 1986 when his plane was shot down over Lebanon. Arad’s name has become synonymous with a fate worse than death – a state of limbo.

There are many others still missing, including Yehuda Katz, the last of the “Sultan Yakoub III,” whose fate remains unknown since the battle between Israeli and Syrian forces near that Lebanese village in June 1982, at the start of the First Lebanon War. Actually, it’s not accurate to say that nobody knows his fate. Somebody knows, just as someone knew where Gvili’s body was buried. I take comfort that one day – however long it takes – Israel will eventually retrieve and repatriate the bodies of all these missing sons.

This is not based on wishful thinking alone. Like my reply, “Things will be good,” it is based on experience. In 1984, I attended the homecoming for a prisoner of war who returned after two years in a Syrian jail. My family knew his brother and had been involved in what today would be called a campaign for his release. In those days, “campaigns” were military and PR companies had no say in the process.

My family was also friendly with the parents of Zachary Baumel, another of the Sultan Yakoub III. Baumel’s body was finally brought home (with Russian help) in 2019. (Tzvi Feldman, also killed in that battle, was retrieved and buried last May.)

In 2010, I attended the military funeral of a sort-of cousin, Dov (Doveleh) Haberberg. Doveleh was killed in the 1948 War of Independence but his body was only identified along with two others, Eliahu Mouansa and Ze’ev Mandel, more than 60 years later. At the ceremony, Mouansa’s brother recalled how his father had always believed Eliahu would one day return, and how he scoured the images of soldiers released from captivity following the 1967 Six Day War, hoping against hope that his son would be among them.

Of course, it is better to celebrate the live return of captives, but never underestimate the powerful need to know that a loved one is dead and buried – with a place to mourn – rather than the ongoing agony of always wondering. Closure is better than an open wound. I was touched that the army had not given up on the three – even though more than six decades had passed since they fell.

INSTEAD OF dreading the question “How are you feeling?” I now find myself unable to answer, “What do you think will happen?” Even before October 7, 2023, it was difficult to make predictions; it is now harder than ever.

I’m not sure that anybody two years ago thought Israel would be able to return all the hostages from Gaza – including two who had been held in captivity for 10 years and the bodies of two soldiers killed and abducted in 2014. I doubt anyone could imagine the successes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the “Pager Operation” and the targeted elimination of the terrorist organization’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. And few could have foreseen that last June Israeli fighter pilots would be able to fly freely above the skies of Iran, knocking out ballistic missiles and launchers and (with US help) bombing underground nuclear facilities.

I can’t even predict what will be by the time you read these lines, especially with the heightened tension in Iran. Until the Islamic regime is toppled, the Iranian people – and the world – will not be free.

And then there is the question of Phase II of the Gaza ceasefire. The hostages have returned but Hamas remains armed and dangerous. The Trump peace plan cannot work while the terrorist regime is in control.

ANOTHER FACTOR needs to be taken into account. Our commitment to the Jewish commandment to “redeem captives,” is both our strength and our weakness.

As Eylon Levy posted on Facebook: “The October 7th hostage crisis is over, but it won’t be the last hostage crisis... we paid a ransom to get the hostages out. We left Hamas in power, and we freed thousands of terrorists from jails. We put the hostage-takers of tomorrow back on the streets to get out the hostages of yesterday... Israel has taught Hamas that taking hostages works... And Israel is going to have to think of creative and maybe aggressive ways to deter more hostage-taking in future. That needs to be a national priority...”

Pressure needs to be put on the terrorists who abduct and hold hostages and the organizations and countries – such as Iran, Qatar, and Turkey – who support them.

The politicization of the hostage issue was part of the greater October 7 tragedy. There were arguments over how best to achieve the hostages’ return, what price to pay in terms of terrorist prisoner releases and the resulting future threat, and the culpability of the government in the October 7 disaster and handling of the war. But the basic principle was understood – you don’t leave someone behind, alive or dead.

After 843 days, we can put away the lists of names of those who were in our thoughts and prayers, take off yellow hostage pins, and remove yellow ribbons. Closure doesn’t mean an end; it marks the start of a better chapter.