Lopez: the pain of Hamas hostage families

WASHINGTON — "Good morning. I'm Kathryn, what's your name?"

It was a natural enough question — at that awkward part of a meeting where we knew the vaguest things about one another.

I knew he had a family member being held by Hamas. He knew I cared enough to listen to him.

I wanted to put him at ease. And, of course, hear his story.

I met Ofir Angrest and eight families who'd just traveled from Israel, as part of a press event. But it was much more than a media opportunity. It was a chance to offer compassion and to learn.

Ofir is the younger brother of Matan Angrest, who was attacked by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas raided the Nahal Oz military base. The three men with whom Angrest shared an Israeli Defense Forces tank — Itay Hen, Daniel Peretz and Tomer Leibovitz — were all killed that day. Angrest was injured and unconscious and was taken alive.

In a statement, sharing a Hamas hostage video showing a malnourished-looking Angrest, the family pleaded for expedited negotiations while bemoaning his appearance: "Beyond the severe psychological state evident in the footage, his right hand is nonfunctional, his eyes and mouth are asymmetrical and his nose is broken, according to testimonies from those who have returned – all due to interrogations and torture in captivity."

I told Ofir that many of us are praying for him, his parents and his brother. He told me that he is certain that his brother can feel the prayers of people of good will who recoil in the face of inhumanity and aren't shy to call out the barbarism of Hamas and the evil of antisemitism.

Ofir's thanksgiving for Americans taking the time to listen was consistent with the feelings of his father and other families. A newspaper cartoon that former hostage Eli Sharabi recently handed Donald Trump came to mind when some of the fathers started talking about the silence in the West on the hostage issue. The cartoon depicted three Holocaust survivors, with the post-World War II "Never again" refrain. The next panel had three former Hamas hostages, as emaciated as those Holocaust survivors. "Again" was under those three — one of them a likeness of Sharabi.

When our short meeting was over, Merav Gilboa-Dalal came straight for me and gave me a great, disarming hug that communicated so much — gratitude, anger, misery, exhaustion, safety and restlessness. Her son, Guy, was at his first music festival in October, with his older brother and friends. His big brother Gal survived the brutal Hamas attack on that festival, but Guy was kidnapped, along with many others. Merav hugged Guy, and he took a selfie with her that morning. Merav can't wait to hug her kidnapped son again. In the meantime, she thanks those of us who are seemingly doing the bare minimum — seeing her son as a human who deserves better than to be held hostage by terrorists.

I wish we had to imagine the evil of antisemitism. While we don't, may every hug between a Jew and a Christian be healing and, by some miracle, a consolation to those who are isolated in dark tunnels, with no idea if they will emerge from captivity alive to see their mothers and brothers and fathers again.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute and editor-at-large of National Review magazine.