Israeli hostages who were freed from Hamas fear the remaining captives’ lives are now at risk after the Jewish state ended the cease-fire with a series of airstrikes in Gaza Tuesday morning.
Yarden Bibas, whose wife and two toddlers were killed while in captivity, warned that the airstrikes in Gaza could pose a threat to two of his best friends being held by Hamas — with the renewed fighting triggering his own painful memories under the terrorists’ custody.
“Israel’s decision to return to fighting brings me back to Gaza, to the moments where I heard the sounds of explosions around me and where I feared for my life as I was afraid that the tunnel where I was being held would collapse,” he wrote in a statement.
“My wife and children were kidnapped alive and were brutally murdered in captivity. The military pressure endangers the hostages while an agreement brings them home,” he added.
Eliya Cohen, who was forced to leave his brother, Alon Ohel, behind in Gaza after he was freed last month, said he can’t sit still knowing the fighting has resumed while his sibling remains trapped.
“It’s just impossible to grasp, and there are no words to describe the lack of understanding in our country about what is taking place 50 meters underground,” Cohen said.
“And if there is any understanding, then how to explain this abandonment and lack of attention to human life?”
Fellow freed captive Omer Wenkert also criticized the Israeli government, saying that the decision to return to war without a hostage deal undermines the advocacy he and the other survivors and families have done.
“Have you listened to a word of what we freed hostages have been telling you? Do you not see us?” Wenkert wrote.
“This dangerous decision will have an untold effect on those of us who are still held there. And I say ‘on us’ because those who are there are me, and I am them.
“I’m still there!” he added. “Until the last hostage is released I am still there!”
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group consisting of former captives and the family of those still held by Hamas terrorists, called for a protest in Jerusalem over the end of the cease-fire deal.
“There is nothing more urgent than this! With each passing day, the danger to the hostages grows. Military pressure could further endanger their lives and complicate efforts to bring them home safely,” the group said.
The outcry from the former hostages came after Israeli forces launched a devastating wave of new airstrikes against Hamas in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, killing more than 400 people as the cease-fire deal fell apart following the terror group’s reported refusal to free more hostages.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz added that “the gates of hell will open in Gaza” and Hamas will be struck with a force it has “never seen before” if the remaining hostages aren’t freed, according to the Times of Israel.
Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, only 24 of whom are believed to be alive, including Israeli American Edan Alexander.
The breakdown in the cease-fire came over Hamas’ refusal to release more hostages as part of an extension of the first phase of the deal, with the terror group pushing for the cease-fire to move on to the next stage.
Phase two would have seen all the living hostages freed at once in exchange for Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza, which the Jewish state has refused.
Israel leaders have reiterated that they won’t stop the fighting unless Hamas, which carried out the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack, cedes power in Gaza.
