TEL AVIV (Reuters) – In the six months since Hamas attacked Oct. 7 while hiding under a pile of bodies at an outdoor music festival that became a battlefield in southern Iraq Israel, Ziv Abud devoted all her time to freeing her hostage boyfriend. .
Abud, 26, and her boyfriend Eliya Cohen were among the revelers at the Nova festival which was attacked by Hamas gunmen. Cohen was taken prisoner and is one of more than 130 people still detained. The Hamas attack sparked a devastating war in Gaza.
“We need more effort, we actually need to do more things to free them, because apparently what we are doing is not enough,” Abud said in a Tel Aviv square that has become a protest site for the families of the hostages and their supporters.
“I expected them to arrive home alive, because bringing hostages back in coffins is not an image of victory.”
Many hostage families are demanding that the Israeli government do everything in its power to secure their release from Gaza and are trying to increase pressure by intensifying street protests. They also called on Israel’s allies to do more to support their cause.
Egypt will host a new round of negotiations on Sunday aimed at reaching a truce in Gaza and an agreement on the release of hostages.
Abud, wearing a T-shirt with a photo of her boyfriend, recounted how she survived the Hamas assault.
“I was buried under the bodies for six hours, and six hours later a man came for his son. And when he came for his son, based on where his son had sent him , he found me and five other people,” she told Reuters in an interview.
“If he hadn’t come, I might not be alive today either.”
Israel says it will not stop its offensive on Gaza until all hostages are freed and Hamas no longer poses a threat. Hamas has sought to turn any agreement into an end to fighting and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
“I myself have experienced horrors, I myself am in mourning for my nephew, for my family, and with all this, I still have to get up every morning and think to myself: what am I doing today ‘today to free my partner from Gaza.?’ » said Aboud.
(Reporting by Rami Amichay; editing by Ros Russell)
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