The anguish this must bring to the families is overwhelming; to realize that all the hope and effort and begging of fate and railing at the gods and prayer were, it turns out, for you. But what else can they do? If you do not stay active, if you do not hold onto hope and incant so hard you imagine you are building the rope to your child, if you let go of that, you have nothing in your hands.I spent the first few days of my trip to Israel last month inside the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. It should have been a terrible place to be, owing to the reasons people were there, their loved ones having been taken hostage and brought to Gaza on October 7.
Heartbreaking is the only word.