Frozen in time, families of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas feel trapped in an endless October 7, 2023. They believe Iran holds the key to their release and blame its rulers for the attacks and the ongoing conflict.
The story of Oded and Yocheved Lifshitz
Daniel Lifshitz's grandparents, Oded and Yocheved, are believers in peace.
As lifelong human rights activists, they regularly transported patients from Gaza to Israel for medical treatments in their golden years.
In 1972, Daniel said Oded challenged the Israeli military and Ariel Sharon to protect Bedouin Arabs in Rafah.
“He was a journalist, peace activist, human rights activist; he was with the Doctors Without Borders in Rwanda. They believe education is the only thing that will save Gaza,” said Daniel.
Their abduction casts light on a brutal irony: having spent their lives trying to unite both sides of the conflict, they were taken hostage and used as pawns in a war that they opposed.
Daniel’s grandmother Yocheved was released after 16 days in captivity, but his 83-year-old grandfather Oded is still a hostage, one year on.
His best friend, a medic murdered on Oct. 7, and more than a quarter of the Kibbutz Nir Oz where he grew up with 400 members, were either kidnapped or murdered by Hamas.
His grandparents' home in Nir Oz, close to the border with Gaza in Southern Israel, burned to ashes. Daniel was in France and luckily his mother Rita and daughter were in Tel Aviv on Oct. 7, escaping potential death and abduction.
While he marks the tragedy and the pain of not knowing the fate of his grandfather and other hostages, he believes his nightmare started with the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“Everything started from the green light of Iran, and they pushed for it.”
Daniel said Iran could end everyone's suffering and push Hamas for a ceasefire and release of the hostages, but he believes the clerical establishment is more interested in escalating the conflict.
If Israel had confronted Iran directly, Daniel says, instead of invading Gaza, the situation may have ended by now.
“I believe that if we started it with that, maybe with answering Iran and not Gaza on October 7th, things could be different.”
Israeli forces have killed 41,000 people in Gaza according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.
Since Hamas's surprise attack, Israel has said its goal is to destroy Hamas and that it aims to minimize civilian casualties.
Israeli official figures estimate that about 1,200 of its people have been killed since Oct.7, including about 800 civilians, 346 soldiers and 66 police officers.
Judi and Gadi
Judi Weinstein Haggai and Gadi Haggai were soulmates.
They were pro-peace activists who abhorred war, said their daughter Iris Weinstein Haggai.
She described her parents as hippies with her father playing the flute in the Israeli military orchestra, making meals in his kibbutz as a chef and her mother teaching English and mindfulness.
"They had a band together called the Jazz Alliance, and they played all over Israel."
They were murdered by Hamas on October 7 after taking their morning walk outside the Kibbutz Nir Oz fields. It was something they did every day, except that day didn’t end like it always did.
Their routine ended in tragedy.
Judi witnessed her husband being killed. She called medical emergency services, describing in detail what had happened over the phone.
Their daughter, Iris, heard the tapes and shared it with the media.
Iris said paramedics tried to send an ambulance, but the wheels of the ambulance were shot by Hamas who then burned it.
Her mother died after that call, but Iris doesn’t know exactly what had happened. They had both been shot by Hamas on motorbikes, with Gadi being "hit badly" according to his desperate wife on the phone, and Judi sustaining wounds.
“All I know is that my mom witnessed my dad's murder. And that she was either murdered after or died from her wounds because they were both shot by terrorists on a motorcycle that day.”
Their bodies were taken to Gaza where they are still held hostage. Judi, who grew up in Toronto and was born in New York, held Canadian, American and Israeli citizenship. Her husband held American and Israeli passports.
It’s been a year, and Iris said she still doesn’t have a grave to go to.
Judi and Gadi sent a final text message to their children at around seven in the morning, saying that they were under attack from rockets. It ended with Iris asking her parents to let her know when they arrived home.
That never happened.
“It's just been like a long day since,” said Iris.
“They were just stolen from us. And it's that feeling that you can't create new memories anymore.”
She said her biggest regret was that her children would not get to grow up with their grandparents.
Iris has a lot of questions on why it took Israeli forces several hours to respond in Nir Oz.
An official probe found that it failed to properly assess and respond to the Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7. The findings published in July stated that the Gaza Division sent troops to neighboring communities but not to Nir Oz itself.
It took seven hours for security forces to arrive.
While Iris wants answers from the Israeli government, she points the blame at the Islamic Republic of Iran.
She told Iran International that current events provide an opportunity to take on Iran's theocratic rulers, whom she views as the orchestrators of the attacks.
“I think it's finally time to do something about the Islamic regime in Iran. This is the time.”
Through her own pain, she has established connections with the Iranian diaspora and is trying to form a united front against what she sees as Iran's oppressive leadership.
Iris spoke of the timing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the Iranian people last week, delivered in English and subtitled in Persian, conveying a warning to the system and assurances to the people of Iran.
“I think that that unity is really strong. And there's a reason that, you know, Bibi spoke to the Iranian people. But I think we should unite somehow and create this front together,” she added.