Relatives spoke about the condition of the freed Israeli hostages: “They are still in shock”

Israeli hostages freed from Gaza begin difficult recovery. Their relatives are given a painful glimpse of what their loved ones have endured as they exchange their first words since their release from Hamas captivity.

The Mander women, Ruthie and Keren, knew that after everything had already been taken from them, they could not afford to lose track of time, writes The Observer. While they were held captive in Gaza with Keren’s nine-year-old son Ohad, they counted the days as they slowly turned into weeks and then into a second month.

“They said they were trying to remember the days,” said Roni Raviv, 78-year-old Ruthie’s niece and Keren’s cousin. “They always knew what day it was and what date it was.” They knew they had been there for 49 days. They were together all the time.”

She spoke to her relatives by phone on Friday, hours after they were released as part of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas: “We spoke to them last night for a few minutes, we just wanted to hear their voice, to hear, that they are okay.”

Ohad’s emotional reunion with his father at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, was posted online on Friday. Ohad, who was nine years old in captivity, also spoke with a friend Friday night, and other friends planned to visit him in the hospital on Saturday, Raviv said.

But all the recently released hostages are at the beginning of a difficult period of recovery. “They’re still in shock, all of them,” she said, adding that the conversation provided a painful insight into what the trio had endured.

“They told us that some days there was more food and some days there was less,” added Raviv, a 27-year-old architecture student who became a campaigner overnight when her relatives were kidnapped.

Perhaps the most pressing question looming over the captive group was the fate of two male relatives, Ruti’s husband Abraham and their son Roya, of whom they had not heard from since October 7, when Hamas attacked Kibbutz Nir Oz.

The women tried to lock themselves in a safe room with Ohad as Nir Oz filled with gunfire and explosions, but Abraham was in another room. “When they were captured, they already saw that he wasn’t there—that’s the only thing they knew,” Raviv said. They feared that both had been killed.

But while Roi, 50, was among the 1,200 victims killed that day, Abraham was also taken to Gaza, one of about 240 people captured as bargaining chips.

He is 78 years old, weak and suffering from health problems, ill-prepared for captivity, and his relatives are desperately seeking his release. But at least initially, his wife and daughter welcomed the news that he was being held because the alternative was even worse.

“They were worried all the time. When we told them that Abraham was being held hostage, they actually felt relieved,” Raviv said. “I think they just thought both men were dead and had been living with it for 49 days.”

Now Ruthie has not lost hope of reuniting with her husband. “Ruthie is optimistic—she thinks that if she comes back, Abraham might come back soon,” Raviv says. But his family is worried about him. “He’s the least healthy of them all. He has poor vision, walks with a cane, and has PTSD [посттравматическое стрессовое расстройство]and being in such conditions is probably really difficult for him,” notes Raviv.

“We still have a long way to go… But seeing them and seeing that they are okay gives us hope,” she added.

The family also remains focused on the campaign to free many other hostages; after weeks of pressuring Israeli leaders and the international community to release everyone who had been kidnapped, the relatives had become a close-knit group, she added.

“We don’t want to get too excited and happy because we feel like we’re one big family and we have really good connections with other families and we try to help each other and be there for each other,” Raviv says.