Relatives of Hamas’ hostages recall October 7 trauma: “We were in denial”

When Shay Benjamin’s father Ron went missing on October 7, she cried for 15 hours straight.

She was in Dubai, returning from a vacation in the Philippines, when a flurry of cellphone message alerted her to the unfolding events in Israel on October 7.

A keen sportsman, Ron, 53, from Rehovot, had gone that morning for a group bicycle ride by the Gaza border, near Kibbutz Be’eri. The cascade of rockets he heard above him prompted him to leave a voice message to his daughter at around 6.30 a.m. to say that he was fine but would drive back home.

“I was a bit scared but I thought it’s just another round of missiles and rockets—unfortunately we are used to that in Israel,” Shay told Newsweek.

But she knew something was awry when her call to him at quarter of an hour later. went unanswered. He would always pick up the phone to her, even when in an important meeting.

Shay, 25, made calls to her mother and her sister. Maybe Ron simply had no connectivity or was just hiding from the Hamas militants.

Away from the fierce debate about the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza that followed it are the human stories of the 253 Israelis and foreigners captured in the Hamas attacks which killed around 1,200 people.

Shay’s is one of them as she recounted how she felt when the full scope of the terrorist attacks become apparent as she waited in her hotel room for her connecting flight home. “I cried the whole time.”

Upon her return, instead of sharing vacation stories with the father who is also her best friend, she had to proceed to the police station to file a missing person report.

His empty vehicle was found shot up, although the driver’s side only had broken windows. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the family he was among the hostages.

“Ever since then, we have just been fighting on,” she said.

Five months without hearing his voice has been hard, Ron fills the thoughts of Shay and her family throughout the day. “Whenever I’m taking even an apple, I’m thinking to myself, ‘is my dad getting food, is he even eating today?'”

“It’s hard when I’m going to sleep in my bed with a warm blanket. I’m thinking to myself, ‘my dad doesn’t even have warm clothes because when they were kidnapped, it was summer and they all wear short clothes.’ Now it’s winter and it’s so cold.”

Her parents have been together for 27 years and as the oldest of two sisters, Shay has been thrust into the role the head of the family. “I need to take care of them and make sure that they’re OK. It’s hard for them.”

The Hamas militants did not just target kibbutzim, such as Be’eri, Netiv haAsara and Kfar Aza, but also people at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival in the Negev Desert.

One of them was Omer Shem Tov, (21) who had been in Jerusalem the previous day to celebrate his mother’s birthday and enjoy a Shabat dinner which he left early to go to the festival.

His family told him to have fun. When they woke up to reports of bombs, rockets and alarms, they called him. “There were a lot of mixed emotions that day,” his brother, Amit Shem Tov, 24, told Newsweek.

Omer said he was OK and that he was heading to the car. Another call an hour later, he still sounded calm, despite being confronted with blood, bodies and gunshots. He had made it to the vehicle which he and his friends decided to ditch and walk due to a bottleneck outside the site of panicking festival goers.

His family lost contact with him but they still held out hope that maybe he was hiding in the bushes or doing something else to lay low. But a mobile phone tracker ominously showed him heading towards Gaza.

That evening, their father scoured every hospital and gathering area to find Omer. At 8 p.m, the family received a call from Omer’s friend who told him there was a video of him.

It showed him being taken to Gaza in the back of a truck on a bed of guns and ammunition, images which caused his mother to scream.

“We were in denial most of the day,” Amit said. “Once we reached the evening, we heard the news and there were no longer mixed emotions—it was just fact.” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later confirmed he had been kidnapped.

“She prays for him and every evening she does the same, goes to his room,” and tells him “everything that she did that day, everything that she’s going to do.”

Omer, an asthmatic, has celiac disease which makes the gluten in any bread that might be the only food he is offered, a perilous prospect for his health.

“He is beautiful from the outside but he’s even more beautiful from the inside. He has a shining personality. All the wants to be surrounded by friends all the time.” he said, “he’s my best friend.”

Naama Levy

One of the first videos of the Hamas attacks showed Naama Levy (19) being dragged into a jeep at gunpoint, barefoot, with cut ankles, her hands bound and with a large bloodstain on the seat of her pants.

It led to concerns that amid the numerous atrocities Hamas committed was the weaponizing of sexual violence on a mass scale.

Before that day, videos of Naama would show her laughing, dancing and spending time with family and friends. The footage the rest of the world knows her is unrepresentative of the life she had before October 7.

When her brother Amit Levy (21) and his sister saw the clip, “we both were shocked. Our faces went red, we didn’t understand what we were watching.”

“We pushed our younger 11-year-old brother away so he wouldn’t see it. We also didn’t want our parents to see the video because we knew it would be too hard,” he told Newsweek.

Naama had been sleeping at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and was awakened by a missile barrage. She sent her mother a WhatsApp message at 7 a.m. that she was in the safe room. It was the last contact the family had with her.

“Since then, it’s just an ongoing nightmare. Day after day, hour after hour after hour for my family and obviously for Naama,” Amit said.

Her brother said she is soft-spoken but determined. Part of the Hands of Peace program, a peace initiative for Israeli and Palestinian youth, Naama, wants to make the world a better place. “One of her dreams is being a diplomat,” he said.

A triathlete, good swimmer and keen cyclist, she would often wake up their father to get him to take her to competitions. “She’s very competitive— she has this strength in her that I hope can also keep her a survivor in captivity.”

In a visit to the region, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on March 20 “gaps are narrowing” between Israel and Hamas on an extended truce and hostage deal, but hopes have been dashed before. As of Thursday, at least 31,988 Palestinians have been killed and 74,188 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, according to Hamas-run health authorities in the territory.

But there have been false dawns before. The prospect of a deal before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in return for a ceasefire of about 40 days and the release of Palestinian prisoners ended in no breakthrough.

In the meantime, the families of the hostages now live by a calendar that counts the days of absence. In a meeting with British MPs from all parties at Westminster London on March 13, the relatives noted it had been 160 days since they last saw their loved ones.

As they hope for news of a hostage deal, Shay Benjamin and the other relatives of the estimated 100 hostages still in Gaza live from day to day.

“We’re coping. We do whatever we can,” she said.