THE PAIN STRUCK DEEP FOR SHARON LIFSHITZ as the truce between Israel and Hamas broke down early this month. Her 85-yearold mother, Yocheved, had been among the first hostages to be freed by Hamas in late October, even before the brief halt in hostilities a month later to swap some of the captives it seized in its unprecedentedly bloody October 7 raid on Israel in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners held in Israeli jails. Her 83-year-old father, Oded, is still in Gaza somewhere. She does not know if he is alive.
"Our loved ones are dying slowly in Gaza. My father is probably a mile from here. He's not far, he's not in another world. You can walk it in half an hour," Lifshitz told Newsweek in the burned ruins of her parents' house in Kibbutz Nir Oz, just three fields away from the Gaza Strip. "They are there. They are dead or they are dying. We don't even know," she said.
"If a ceasefire is the way, then why start the fire again?" she asks, tearing up. "Why are they not back? Why are we not turning every stone? Why are we not saying 'Yes we will do what we take to get them home?"
"We are being failed at the moment, I feel, by all agencies, by all governments and especially the Israeli government," she said. "We do not have this time."
Like many other family members of the hostages still held in Gaza, she is not convinced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet are doing all they can to prioritize getting their relatives out over the other mission of destroying Hamas in a war that has brought devastation to Gaza and killed thousands of Palestinians.
The fears were underlined by the announcement on Friday, December 15, when the army said it had accidentally killed three hostages after erroneously identifying them as a threat.
Red Cross Accused
Denne historien er fra December 29, 2023-utgaven av Newsweek Europe.
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Denne historien er fra December 29, 2023-utgaven av Newsweek Europe.
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Falling for Romance
A new book, Nora Ephron at the Movies, celebrates the writer/director best known for her iconic rom-coms and strong female characters
Cracking the Norse Code
Walrus DNA has shown that Vikings were likely the first to have encountered Indigenous North Americans
Monumental Shift
The discovery of 165-million-year-old crystals Easter Island has upended the longheld notion of how the Earth's \"conveyor belt\" moves
'OUR FOREIGN POLICY AND DOMESTIC REFORMS ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN'
It is a well-known fact across the globe that the North Korean regime is irrational and unpredictable, but we have been consistent in strengthening our defense posture against the threat from North Korea since the Korean War, and I believe that their conventional capability is much inferior to that of the Korean military.
'They Read My Eulogy As I Lay in an Open Grave'
Like Paris Hilton, Natasia Pelowski claims she was subjected to abuse at a teenage therapy program
Russian Economy Faces 'Burnout'
Vladimir Putin admits difficulties” as the country’s key interest rate reaches a historic high
China's 'Silent Chemical War'
The U.S. must investigate Beijing's role in the manufacturing of fentanyl that is killing Americans, says one mom whose daughter died after accidentally taking the illicit substance
HARSH HEADWINDS
President Yoon Suk Yeol's BATTLE to reform a South Korea beset with structural problems under the specter of an increasingly aggressive neighbor to THE NORTH
Bridget Everett
BRIDGET EVERETT NEVER THOUGHT SHE'D BE THE LEAD OF A TV SHOW. \"I come from the downtown world in New York, a cabaret singer, and these things just don't happen, you don't find yourself with three seasons of HBO.
Amber Ruffin
A LATE-NIGHT COMEDY SHOW ON CNN? YES, and it's a game show, too.
