When Yona Schnitzer, a Tel Aviv Marketing writer, attended the traditional Easter Seder meal last year, said a special prayer for the return of all the hostages who were still the Palestinian militants in Gaza.
He had thought that his freedom would be guaranteed by Easter 2025, but that did not happen.
« It has been normalized so standardized that there is hostage in Gaza, » said Schnitzer, 36. « He is surreal and disgirring. »
On Saturday evening, the Israelis will observe the start of Easter, the Jewish Freedom Festival of the week, for the second time since October 7, Hamas, on October 7, 2023, attacked that he turned on the war in Gaza. Holidays are usually a celebration of the biblical history of the ancient Israelites released from slavery in Egypt, with families who meet to re -present this story, sing songs and eat special foods.
But for many Israelis, the continued captivity of the hostages has made it difficult to feel the joy of the holidays.
« We will mark the holidays. We will not celebrate it, » said Orly Gavishi-Sotto, 47, university administrator in North Israel. « We can only celebrate when all hostages are at home. »
Ms. Gavishi-Sotto said that his family would put an empty chair on Seder’s table, symbolizing the hostages to Gaza that they could not be with their families.
The Israeli government has said that it believes that 24 of the remaining 59 hostages are still alive.
In January, Israeli and Hamas negotiators agreed to cease the fire that allegedly led to the freedom of the rest of the hostages. Thirty living hostages and the bodies of eight others were returned during the initial six weeks of the agreement, but Israel resumed attacks on Gaza on March 18 after the two parties could not agree an extension of the truce.
Since then, the Israeli military embarked on an important bombing campaign and more territory seized Gaza in what the officials have said was an offer To force Hamas to launch more hostages.
But the proponents of the hostages are concerned that the latter offensive will jeopardize the captives. More than three dozen have been killed in captivity From the beginning of the war, both for its captors and for Israeli fires, according to Israeli officials, forensic reports and military research.
According to the Government, about 1,200 people died in Israel in the October 2023 attack. More than 50,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the beginning of the war, according to the Ministry of Health of the territory, which does not differentiate between civilians and fighters in the casualties. Since the cessation of fire has been undone, more than 1,500 people in Gaza have been killed, according to the ministry.
Dani Miran, 80, whose son Omri Miran is hostage to Gaza, said he was planning a simple seder with his family and tried to reassure his granddaughters that his father would return home.
Omri Miran, now 48, was taken by Palestinian militants on October 7, 2023, from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, near the Israeli border with Gaza. He; his wife, Lishay Miran-Lavi; and his two daughters, Roni and Alma, They were initially retained at the gunpointAccording to family members, but was only forced to Gaza.
« Omri has been in the tunnels for more than a year and a half, » said Miran. « I don’t know what their mental state is. I can only expect it to be strong enough to endure this tragedy. »
The Forum of the Hostges Families, a group that represents the relatives of many captives, asked the Israelis to keep seders in an outdoor square of Tel Aviv, which has been known as « Square Hostges ». The group described Easter this year as « another festival of freedom without true freedom. »
Odie Arbel, 77, a resident of Kibbutz Yiftah, in northern Israel, said that his family would use a Haggadah with hostage themes, the text read during the Seder, which tells the story of the liberation of the Israelites.
« A key principle of Judaism and Israeli identity is the redemption of captives, » he said.
More than 68 percent of the Israelis say they believe that releasing hostages is more important than eliminating Hamas from power, according to a survey published by the Israel Institute Institute Institute on Thursday.
The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of Israel, said that the war will not end until the military wing and the Gaza government of Hamas dismantle. Hamas said he will not release all hostages unless Israel ends the war permanently.
Mr. Arbel, who is critical of the government, said that while reflecting on the difficult situation of the hostages of this Easter, he was also thinking of the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
« I’m thinking about the difficulties of the two peoples, » he said.
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