"Time has stopped' Hostages' families in plea from festival site

In the 91 days since Gal Dalal fled the Supernova festival, winter rains have covered fields nearby in grass and flowers, but his life has stayed stuck on a dusty October morning.

- Emma Graham-Harrison

When Hamas closed in on 7 October, he managed to escape across the fields but was separated from his younger brother. Guy, who was 22, talented, goofy and above all his best friend, was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. All Gal can think about is getting him home.

"It looks different, you can see much more green around here," he said on his first trip back to the festival site, standing in eucalyptus groves that were a campsite last time he was here.

"It makes me think how much time has passed, but for me it's like time has stopped. I'm reliving that day, thinking my brother has been held [in Gaza] so long. I love him and miss him so much." He travelled back with relatives of other hostages and one teenager kidnapped at the rave who spent nearly two months as a hostage in Gaza. The group wanted to remember their loved ones in the last place they were happy as well as calling for their return at a press conference there.

"It was very important for me to be here today," said Itay Regev, who turned 18 soon after he was released with his sister, during a brief ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar in late November.

"I was in captivity for 54 days and every day there is like forever.

The conditions there are very, very hard to survive. The hostages cannot stay there for one more second." The nature reserve has become a makeshift memorial. Photographs of the dead, nearly life-size and mounted on metal posts, have created a grove of loss beside the thickets of eucalyptus, marked with flowers, candles and the Israeli flag.