In the garden of his home in central Israel, amid palm trees dappled by the morning sun, Yoni Asher shows a BBC reporter a video on his phone. The video shows his two little girls sitting on the bed singing ”Happy Birthday”.
The older Raz, with long fair hair, is only four years old. Her sister Aviv, darker and more like her dad, is only two years old. “They made this for my birthday in July,” said Yoni.
Four months later, the 37-year-old father and husband is alone. The daughters and their mother, Doron, were captured on October 7th in an unprecedented cross-border attack by Hamas. They are believed to be among the youngest of the 240 hostages being held in Gaza.
“They were visiting their grandmother for the holidays in Nir Oz,” says Yoni.
An Israeli kibbutz is only two miles from Gaza. It was one of the communities hardest hit by the attack, with one in four people living there believed to have been killed or kidnapped by Hamas.
Yoni was not with his family that day. He stayed at home for work, a hundred kilometers away. The first confirmation that his family had been kidnapped by Hamas came in a video posted on TikTok from Gaza. Yoni showed that video as well.
“The only way to describe it is hell,” says Yoni. “That’s the definition of hell.” “How can I eat when I don’t know what my family is eating? How can I sleep when I don’t know if they’re cold or hot? As a father, if you’ve ever seen your children jumping on the bed or sofa, you worried that they might fall, or hit. Imagine how I feel in this situation. Everything is terrifying to me.”
For now, all Yoni has are memories. And inside the family home, they are everywhere. Photos and children’s works on the wall. Small handprints in red. “They liked to draw. Raz made this for me,” Yoni said, pointing to a cartoon figure that is supposed to resemble him.
When asked how he felt about the suffering in Gaza, which has now been under Israeli bombardment for almost a month and where the United Nations (UN) said thousands of children have been killed or injured. “Kids are kids, it doesn’t matter what country they’re from,” he pointed out. ”Children should not be touched. I cannot hate, not even the children of my so-called enemies. How can you hate a child?”
At the age of 37, Yoni has known only the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians all his life. His parents knew it before he was born. But for him, October 7th is clearly the worst moment. “It’s one day of the Holocaust,” he stressed, pausing as if choosing his words. “I know that’s a hard word. But that day was the worst ever seen in the history of the Jewish and Israeli people.”
Does he think Israel will ever be able to get over its collective trauma?
“We have to recover. It will be very difficult. But I believe that in the long run, our nation will recover,” BBC writes.
E.Dz.
