Time running out, bring back all of them now: Hostage forum tells Israel

Tel Aviv, Dec 3: The Hostages and Missing Families Forum told the Israeli government that time was running out and that all the hostages in Hamas captivity should be brought back home. Under the humanitarian truce in Gaza which collapsed on December 1 after seven days, a total of 104 hostages – 80 Israelis, 24 foreign nationals – and 240 Palestinian prisoners were released between November 24 to 30.
Daniel Aloni, who was released from captivity after 49 days together with her daughter Emilia, said: “On October 7 we were brutally kidnapped from our home. My daughters saw things that children their age should never have to see. “Like a horror film. You feel like pinching yourself to wake up from this film. I’m talking and I’m shaking. It was disturbing, it was scary. There is no daily schedule, nothing. You sleep, you cry. Every additional day that passed was endless, an eternity.
“My brother-in-law, his brother, his partner, and her brother are still in captivity. People there may die because they might simply decide to kill them. Release them now, immediately, there is no time. I beg you in heaven’s name and in the name of the other hostages.”
When the released captives arrived at the Hostages Plaza this week, they declared, in front of tens of thousands of people: “Every day you live there could be your last. You can’t imagine the hell. You must not leave them there. Not one more minute.” Another freed hostage, Yelena Trupanob, whose husband Vitaly was murdered on October 7 while her son Sasha remains in Hamas captivity, said: “I am excited to stand here before you, I came to say thank you because without you I would not be here. We need to continue and bring back my Sasha and everyone else home now!”
During a rally of the returnees, videos were screened of the hostages who returned from Hamas captivity and are now recovering in Israeli hospitals and their homes. Shai Gross, one of the Entebbe hostages in 1976, added: ” We will not be satisfied with the return of the hostages who have already returned home, until the last of them returns. Today it’s here but tomorrow it can be anywhere in Europe. (IANS)