'We're Living a Nightmare - Day After Day'

Families of three Israeli hostages share their pain as they wait for their loved ones to be released, six months after they were abducted

- BRENDAN COLE

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

SIX MONTHS IN

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 messages alerted her to the unfolding events in Israel on October 7 last year.

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 for his daughter at around 6:30 a.m. to say that he was fine but would head 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 15 minutes 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, she thought.

Distinct from the fierce debate about the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza that followed, are the human stories of the 253 Israelis and foreigners captured in the Hamas attacks which killed around 1,200 people. On November 24, 81 Israeli citizens and 24 foreign national hostages were released during a week-long ceasefire. As part of the deal, Israel released three Palestinian prisoners for every hostage allowed to leave Gaza. But Israel says there are still 134 people being held in Gaza - not all of them alive.

'It's Hard When I'm Going to Sleep'

Shay recounted how she felt when the full scope of the terrorist attacks became apparent as she waited in her hotel room for her connecting flight home. "I cried the whole time."