For one of the female Israeli hostages who was released in the first cease-fire agreement in November 2023, the hardest part is seeing the embrace between the hostages who are coming home now – as part of the first stage of the deal with Hamas – and their families. “I cannot stop myself from watching the moment of their release from Hamas captivity. Until I see them in the hands of the IDF, I cannot tear myself away from the screen,” she says in a conversation with Shomrim. “But the reunions in hospital are too much for me; I can’t watch them. They take me back to the days of euphoria. When I was high after being released and the families were whole and happy. The hospital is a paradise. I was the last to leave and I only left because I didn’t feel comfortable staying any longer. A lot of the hostages miss those days in the hospital because everyone envelopes you and people bring you whatever you want – and the state is also there for you. It’s crazy.”

What about now, with the perspective of one year and three months having gone by?

“You’re no longer in that place, in part because of the release, which stopped for a long period of time, and also because of the families who fought like mad and allowed themselves to let go – and family is a complex thing. Everything looks perfect at those moments, but afterward things go back to how they were beforehand and sometimes they are even worse, because the whole family has undergone trauma. We talked about it on the retreat that was organized for freed hostages, and we discovered that there’s a drop in tension, which allows a lot of depression and other problems to emerge.”

Have the released female hostages formed a support group for each other?

“Not many participate in these meetings. Everyone is in their own bubble or dealing with their own struggles. When they asked me if I wanted to meet with other freed hostages, I said no straight away.”

I thought you would seek each other out after your return because only you could understand each other’s trauma.

“So what if we were all kidnapped? We are different from so many other aspects. When I did eventually go to one of the meet-ups, I saw that they just got together for coffee and a chat on a farm somewhere and it was pleasant. There’s a lot of black humor, friendships are made and it doesn’t have to be therapeutic. Most of the time, we ask to be left alone with each other, without any therapists.”

Rehabilitating the returned hostages is a complex issue. While the state provides a tailored package of responses for each case, and the situation has certainly improved since the bureaucratic chaos at the start of the process, there remain many issues still to be addressed properly. “It’s baggage that you will carry around with you for the rest of your life,” says Yoav Engel, whose son Ofir was released as part of the first hostage deal. “One year and three months after Ofir was released and it's not just him and us who are still completely living the incident. We don’t know yet what our future will look like. I have been trying to contact Knesset members for the past year, to persuade them to start working on legislative amendments. It was only after the three hostages – Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami, and Or Levy – came home looking like they had survived a Nazi extermination camp that I got phone calls out of the blue from Knesset members, who said they would reexamine laws and deal with the problems.

“The images of those three hostages proved to everyone how dire the situation is. But that’s just one percent of the total problems that we are dealing with – and I include in that not only the released hostages, but also their families, who need assistance if they are going to continue to support the former hostage.”

What happens to the family when their relative is returned from captivity?

“Apart from one relative, who is considered the primary caregiver for an additional two months and who is reimbursed for loss of income, most of the family’s rights are curtailed. The parents still get funding for psychological treatment but siblings who were neglected throughout that whole period stop getting money for therapy – as if the symptoms of the stress and the neglect that they experienced when the hostage was in Gaza simply disappeared the moment they crossed the border back into Israel. Unlike a terror attack, which is over in two minutes, Ofir and I lived through an attack for 54 days; some families have been in that situation for more than 500 days. Even extending these rights for two or three years [as proposed by a new regulation which will be discussed below – C.S.] is not enough. Treatment for the emotional damage must be long term.”

“One year and three months after Ofir was released and it's not just him and us who are still completely living the incident. We don’t know yet what our future will look like."

‘It made my blood boil that they didn’t cut the broadcast’

The Sharabi, Ben Ami and Yehud families, whose loved ones were released as part of the current cease-fire, have all launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover the cost of their rehabilitation. So far, 2.7 million shekels have been raised for Eli Sharabi, around 1 million shekels for Ohad Ben Ami, and around 700,000 shekels for Arbel Yehud. Even among the many people who have donated money, however, the question being asked is why they needed to take such a step and what role the government is or is not playing. Shomrim was unable to obtain responses from Yehiel Yehud, Arbel’s father, Sharon Sharabi, Eli’s brother, or Ella Ben Ami, Ohad’s daughter.

Esther Buchstab, the mother of dead hostage Yagev Buchstab, whose body was recovered from Gaza in August, fully understands the need. “They are not the first families who have launched campaigns. As a family, we were also worried about what the future would bring,” she shares in a conversation with Shomrim. “During the period when we believed that Yagev would come back alive, I was preoccupied with how well his rehabilitation would go and whether he would ever be able to go back to work; I wanted to make sure there was a solid foundation because even then it was obvious to us that rehabilitation would be harder and more complex than we could imagine. The state automatically recognizes freed hostages as victims of enemy activity and returning captives, with 50 percent emotional disability due to post-trauma – but that is a long way from covering the crazy expenses. The question of what life will look like for the children and the young people who were in captivity is still very much unanswered.”

Are you involved in the legislative process on behalf of the families’ forum? How was the discussion about determining emotional disability conducted?

“We wanted every returning hostage to automatically be given the same rights as someone who is 100 percent disabled because of an enemy attack. In other words, they would not be registered as ‘disabled,’ but would get the same rights as if they were. The state said that 50 percent was enough and that if they were given 100 percent disability, it would interfere with rehabilitation. We could have argued until we were blue in the face, but no one could prove at that stage what was correct. Research at that stage was based on pilots who had been freed from captivity, even though you cannot compare a pilot to a four-year-old child or an 80-year-old woman.”

Why would 100 percent disability interfere with rehabilitation? Because they might feel like they were being treated as completely disabled?

“It seems so. But there’s a different problem. It’s hard for some of the returning hostages to ask for things, because that would be a sign of weakness. The female survivors of Kibbutz Nir Oz, for example, aren’t asking for things. They are old-style kibbutzniks who see themselves as strong despite everything they have been through, and they do not feel that it’s legitimate to be preoccupied with their own problems when there are still young Israelis in Hamas’ tunnels. At the time, some of them asked me ‘How can we talk about ourselves when Arbel is still there?’ So, it needs to be automatic.”

Now there is already different data.

"We see that even a 50 percent mental disability rating isn’t enough for those who were held hostage for 50 days—let alone for those who endured more than 500 days in captivity. These people have profoundly changed. Their entire outlook on life has shifted. They need support in many different ways."

One former hostage, released in November 2023, confirms: "When they told me six months ago, ‘You need to start thinking about work,’ I had a panic attack. And I was always someone who worked—but I’m not in that place anymore. Right now, I need quiet. Most of us can't just go back to who we were before. Some mornings, we can’t even get out of bed. We don’t sleep well at night because the thoughts won’t stop. There’s a deep exhaustion and overwhelming sadness."

How did the recent weekly releases of hostages affect you?

“They were very triggering for all of us and led to flashbacks. The crowd that surrounded Arbel Yehud and Gadi Mozes tore us apart. It made my blood boil that they didn’t cut the live broadcast. I thought that the crowd was about to beat them to death.”

Engel adds that, “some of the returning hostages and some of their relatives are in such dire emotional condition that they cannot even fill out a form to get the benefits to which they are entitled. It’s true that there is a coordinator for families at the Administration for the Hostages and Missing and a nurse at the HMOs – and there’s even a representative from the National Insurance Institute who is familiar with the hostage’s case – but some people do not even have the strength to talk to them to set up appointments, just like they don’t have the strength to click on the link that they were sent detailing the most up-to-date benefits they’re entitled to. These are not functioning people; we have to make everything more accessible to them. In the meantime, the returning hostages are being spared having to appear before a committee if they want to get a higher disability percentage, but that could also change. Moreover, the bureaucratic process of obtaining and submitting so many forms is exhausting.”

According to sources in the medical establishment who are familiar with the issue, nurses who call on behalf of the HMO work according to a strict protocol and contact the returning hostages at their own initiative. When it comes to families, they are more cautious and initiate less, since some of the families felt uncomfortable with a ‘cold call’ from the HMO.

‘Therapists should not feel like they are making a loss by treating us’

This means, therefore, that there are some returning hostages and their relatives who are not getting any kind of mental health treatment. “It’s important to talk about this,” says Dr. Einat Yehene, a clinical neuropsychologist and a specialist-supervisor rehabilitation psychologist who is head of rehabilitation in the Health Division of the Hostage Families Forum. “I conducted more than 55 in-depth interviews with returning hostages and their families, as well as the relatives of murdered hostages. Most of them were not getting psychological therapy.”

How can it happen that a freed hostage is not in therapy?

“Some of them did not seek it out because they were preoccupied with the struggle to get other relatives out of captivity. They also hear people around them saying that ‘no one knows how to deal with this kind of trauma because it has never happened anywhere in the world.’ So, they come to the conclusion that they are in the hands of people who do not know how to treat them.”

And that prevents them from fully giving themselves over to therapy.

“Correct. In general terms, people who suffer extreme trauma think that no one can understand them – and that kind of thinking is even more deeply embedded here: How can a therapist who has never set foot in Gaza understand what I went through?”

Are there any alternatives to mental rehabilitation at this stage of their lives?

“Some get involved in hasbara. They tell people what they went through, and they are embraced by the world. That gives their experiences validity and is also a valuable therapeutic tool. You need a certain maturity to talk about trauma and for some of them, treatment through conversation is less appropriate. There are some people who prefer stronger stimuli, like music, physical therapy, or walking in nature. It is very characteristic of people who were in captivity to always be on the move. They prefer for their brains to be busy. Sitting around doing nothing allows the memories to come flooding back – memories that they prefer to repress as they are highly triggering. One returned hostage cannot stand the thought of being thirsty, because it reminds her of the weeks spent down in the tunnels, so she has to drink immediately. For others, crowds of people remind them of being surrounded in Gaza.”

Funding for psychological treatment is something that very much preoccupies the thoughts of the families. The Administration for the Hostages and Missing said in response that, “the maximum hourly rate for therapy for freed hostages is 541 shekels and the rate is determined by the therapist’s level of expertise and their seniority. For relatives, the maximum rate is 384 shekels.” The problem, however, is that a senior psychologist, with expertise in treating trauma cases, takes more than 400 shekels an hour.

How do they bridge this gap? “You can select a therapist who has been approved by the National Insurance Institute or another therapist and pay the difference,” says Aviram Meir, whose nephew Almog Meir Jan was rescued by the IDF from an apartment in central Gaza in June last year. “Sometimes therapists are willing to charge the National Insurance Institute rates when they realize that they are treating the relative of a hostage or you go to fewer sessions with that therapist.”

Carmit Palty Katzir, whose mother Hannah was released after 49 days in Hamas captivity and died two months ago, and whose brother Elad was kidnapped and murdered in captivity, would prefer things to be managed differently. “Not every therapist wants to be part of the arrangement with the National Insurance Institute, and you cannot rely on their sense of duty or altruism – certainly not in the long term. The families have enough emotional turmoil as it is. Why should they have to add the emotional trauma, feeling indebted or grateful? They have to know that the therapist is being adequately compensated for their work and not handing out discounts.”

Much of the emotional support that the families are receiving is through private initiatives, which have raised money across the world. “At first, the state stipulated that the patients had to choose from a list provided by the Haruv Institute, which was awarded the tender,” says Renana Gome Yaakov – whose sons, Or Yaakov, 16, and Yagil Yaakov, 13, were freed in the first exchange deal. The body of their father, who was murdered on October 7, is still in Gaza. “Then they realized that they couldn’t rely on a few dozen therapists, most of whom are in the center of the country when many of us were evacuated to the peripheries. We were also offered therapy in resilience centers, but the therapists there felt like they were working almost as volunteers, which led to a high turnover of personnel. Therapists should not feel like they are making a loss by treating us. In the end, they need to make a living, too.”

Are you taking advantage of the rehabilitation basket?

“I haven’t got round to it yet. I have to keep my house standing – by myself.”

"When people say that they cannot continue with their lives until every last hostage is returned, it’s not just a slogan. We are in a period of continuous mourning that cannot be contained and certainly not ended before this circle is closed."

‘For me, a kidnapped child is not an extreme scenario’

The families of hostages can be divided into several categories. Those who were in the Gaza envelope on October 7 are also recognized as victims of terrorist activity and receive additional support. This is in contrast to the families of people who were kidnapped while visiting the region or who were at the Nova music festival but who were themselves not geographically close to the communities that were attacked. Currently, the latter group does not receive any support from the state once their loved one is freed from captivity.

“The state does not view them as eligible for rehabilitation once the hostage is freed,” explains Meir, whose nephew Almog was kidnapped from the Nova music festival and who has been active in fighting for families’ rights as part of the forum. “As long as their loved one is still in Gaza, the family is treated like a bereaved family. If the hostage is brought back for burial, they will continue to be seen as such; but if they come back alive, as we all pray will happen, these families will drop off the state’s radar. It’s as if the authorities are telling us: ‘You got your kid back alive? Now shut up and go back to work!’.”

Was it that brutal?

“There are some good people in the government departments who are dedicated to helping. We constantly hear about cases when the state gives something off the radar. There are clerks who cut corners to find a way to provide a service that isn’t included in the basket, to deal with crises that are not covered by the law. That’s very nice of them, of course, but this is not how things should be conducted.”

Meir is not the only interviewee to mention this practice. “We were told that if we tell people we got this kind of treatment, people could be sent to prison,” says the relative of one of the freed hostages. “It’s an absurd state of affairs, given that the things we are getting are pretty basic, like psychological care for siblings. We had to submit an application to have it renewed every three months. Who wants to start therapy knowing that there’s a three-month horizon and that it’s not certain they’ll be funding after that.”

Engel, who lives in Ramat Rachel, has this to add: “The Administration and the National Insurance Institute are trying to help us and there is a lot of goodwill, but we don’t want to be in a constant state of submitting requests to extend our benefits. And then there’s the whole issue of not being able to work and earn a living, which is not being taken into account at all. Most of the families are not really able to go back to work, even when the hostages are released. We, for example, are still waging our campaign, going to meetings at the Knesset and we also need to take care of our daughters, who went through horrible trauma when Ofir was in Gaza – and we didn’t have time for them.”

Did you go back to work at half capacity?

"At five percent capacity. For me, the thought of a child being kidnapped isn’t an extreme scenario. It’s even a realistic possibility—certainly not imaginary."

Are you more anxious parents now? When Agam Berger’s mother saw her for the first time, she said she’d never let her out of sight again.

“A lot of our daily decisions take into the equation the fact that the kid was held captive. How to behave, what’s permissible, what boundaries to impose. It’s most convenient to think that it’s not connected to anything, but it always appears as an unknown in the equation. You work all day to get rid of the worries and the worries never end. It means taking the kids everywhere because you don’t want them taking the bus. It means calling a lot and driving over to check that everything’s okay. We work hard on not allowing certain things so that we will worry less.”

The question of boundaries comes up in different ways in each family. The mother of one girl who was taken hostage wonders how many desserts to allow her daughter, who was starved while in captivity and now craves sweet foods. Another parent is at a loss as to how to get their children back to school when they no longer see any point in studying and want to spend the day in front of various screens.

Meir also talks about the difficulty in setting boundaries. “Almog is in Thailand now with friends – even though the last thing his mother wanted was for him to disappear for six weeks. Did that do her any good? No. On the other hand, you can look at the independence and resilience he has shown as a positive thing. In certain ways, his situation is a lot better than that of my sister, who did not take care of herself at all during his eight months in captivity. Almog’s grandparents, my parents, have been a lot less present throughout this whole period because they did not want to get in the way. And now, seeing the deterioration, I catch myself thinking, ‘Wow, I’m a terrible son. How did I not notice how much they were wearing down?'"

It is a life-changing event for the whole family.

“I can see that in a lot of hostage families. Roles change, and relationships fall apart. There’s a crazy shift. From what I can see, a family that experienced October 7 in a stable condition came out of it stronger. And families that were already conflicted will emerge weakened.”

Aviram Meir: "From what I can see, a family that experienced October 7 in a stable condition came out of it stronger. And families that were already conflicted will emerge weakened.”

‘The state doesn’t see siblings as part of the incident’

The financial support that returned hostages and their families have received from the state thus far has been given out on the basis of the existing legislation that covers freed captives, people injured in terror attacks, and disability. In November 2023, the Knesset passed a law granting financial assistance to the families of hostages, according to which the family is entitled to the same financial support given to the family of a fallen soldier or someone killed in a terror attack – as long as their loved one is still a hostage. “They told us that coming up with a new law and a scale of eligibility just for hostage families would take years, so we should accept the current mechanism for freed captives and terror victims and there would be amendments here and there,” Engel explains.

“There are a lot of lacunae in the existing legislation which was enacted in a piecemeal fashion,” Palty Katzir adds, “so we want to be part of the process of drafting a special law for victims of October 7 – which, as things currently stand, does not have a majority of support in the Knesset for political reasons.”

Just last week, the Defense Ministry submitted a memorandum of law dealing with compensation for hostage families. The memorandum seeks to extend some of the benefits paid to the families, primarily psychological and medical treatment, for two years from the day that their loved one returned alive from captivity. In cases when their relative is killed in Gaza, the family gets the same benefits as a fallen soldier’s family. In addition, the Ministry of Defence is proposing a change to the law on funding for the families of hostages still being held in Gaza, increasing the payment to divorced parents and siblings.

Currently, the parents of a hostage receive 90,000 shekels per quarter. The Ministry of Defence’s proposed amendment would grant an additional 13,500 shekels to divorced parents. Similarly, the quarterly payment to adult children and siblings of a hostage would rise from 21,000 a month to 24,000 a month or, if that person has children, to 25,500 shekels. These are not exactly sums of money that would help a family in which everyone has stopped working, in order to join the struggle for the return of the hostages, to survive. (See charts for details).

The estimated cost of the law is 18 million shekels in the first year and 14 million shekels in the second year. “It’s a step in the right direction, but still only a small step,” says Meir, “and it’s shameful that they only submitted this law after 500 days – and we have no idea when it will come into effect.”

The status of siblings is a sensitive issue for all hostage families. “The state does not see siblings as part of the incident,” says Buchstab. “As long as their sibling is in Gaza, and they are part of the struggle to secure the release, they are supposed to get 7,000 shekels a month and when the hostage is returned – dead or alive – they are completely set to one side, even though they have undergone massive trauma themselves, have fought for their sibling and stopped working or studying to dedicate themselves to the struggle.”

Families who are naturally going through perhaps the most difficult upheaval are those whose loved ones were kidnapped alive and murdered in captivity but have not yet been returned for burial. “Families who have been informed that their loved ones are dead but are still in Gaza are considered bereaved families by the state,” says Yehene, the clinical neuropsychologist. But it would be more accurate to call them the families of slain hostages because they have not been able to bury their relatives or to sit shiva. They cannot start to mourn because they are still fighting to get their loved one’s remains back for burial, and they still have some vague hope that there's been a mistake and their relative will come back alive.”

Especially given that Hamas has already engaged in manipulation of this kind when it staged the death of IDF spotter Daniella Gilboa, who came back alive.

“That’s exactly right. Some of the families insist that, until they see the body with their own eyes, their loved one is still alive. Even the families of hostages whose remains were brought back for burial cannot be considered ‘regular’ bereaved families. The state is dealing with them using the tools that already exist, as if their loved one was a soldier killed in battle who was laid to rest within a day. But these are families who conducted a prolonged struggle and who had no idea whether their relative was dead or alive. For them, bereavement is very traumatic and disrupted and these are things that must be addressed in therapy.

Buchstab, who lives on Kibbutz Nirim, says that “when Yagev and his wife Rimon were kidnapped, our lives stopped in a single second. We didn’t deal with the fact that we survived the disaster, we did not take notice of any other aspect of our lives; all we thought about was how to get them out of Gaza. And when we were informed that Yagev was no longer alive, we felt like we had failed. In my head I understand, and I know that the failure wasn’t ours, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s an extremely hard feeling. Yagev was buried in August, and I was due to go back to work as a kindergarten teacher in September – but I couldn’t do it. You recognize that your life has changed. Its significance. Your ability to function.”

Yehene explains that “the families – even if their loved one has returned – feel obligated to be part of the struggle out of a sense of solidarity – but also out of guilt.”

How so?

“Survivor’s guilt. Families whose loved ones returned safely feel survivor’s guilt because fate was kind to them while others are still fighting – and they immediately attend rallies. They have a moral commitment to their psychological family – the hostage families – and for some of them this has an impact on the rehabilitation process and the return to routine. As long as not every hostage is returned, the trauma continues for all of these circles.”

Earlier this month, Zuri Ezra Erez – the uncle of hostage Bar Kuperstein – passed away under tragic circumstances. “The 500 days that he spent fighting for his nephew’s return were too much for him to bear,” the family wrote. In January, Assaf Ben David, the uncle of former hostage Mia Schem, who fought for the return of the hostages and even went looking for his niece on October 7 at the Nova massacre where he was exposed to horrific scenes, passed away under similar tragic circumstances.

“The shockwaves are extensive,” says Inbar Goldstein, whose brother and niece were murdered on October 7 and whose sister-in-law, Chen Goldstein, was released as part of the first cease-fire along with her three other children. “The second and third circles, like uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews, were promoted against their will to the first circle, because in some cases no first-degree relatives survived – or they were taken hostage, or they needed to take care of a newly released hostage.” She takes a deep breath. “But when it comes to eligibility for state assistance, it’s like we don’t exist.”

Are there any philanthropic organizations looking after you?

“They are mainly focusing on people who survived captivity and children who were injured or orphaned during the war – and that also widens the gaps with the other circles.”

Residents of the communities in the Gaza envelope tend not to talk to outsiders about the gaps between the groups of victims in any given community, but they also exist when it comes to rehabilitation. “Families who have a living hostage still in Gaza don’t want to raze their home or renovate it until their loved one comes home and sees what’s left, because, as far as they are concerned, the incident isn’t over and the memorial must remain untouched,” says Gome Yaakov. “In contrast, there are families who very much want to start over.”

The Israeli public wants a happy ending

Ahead of their release from hospital, there were reports that the free IDF spotters were considering resuming their military service, albeit in different positions. The IDF asked them to take their time. Shira Elbag, whose daughter Liri was among the spotters, later gave an interview in which she poured cold water on the idea – and rightly so. Making such decisions while under the influence of post-release euphoria, and perhaps also peer pressure as a result of being in hospital together, should not be seen as a serious commitment. And yet, the public cheers for that ‘closing of the circle’ is symbolic of the happy ending the Israeli public so desperately craves.

“It helps people normalize their feelings and their oppressive thoughts,” says Buchstab. “If the spotter says that she wants to go back into the army, then maybe this whole incident isn’t as terrible as it appears. It’s like people clinging on to Gadi Mozes’ comment that he will be back to rebuild Nir Oz. And he probably will be back, because he’s an extraordinarily strong person, but what about all those people who say they will never go back to living in the Gaza envelope? The public is less willing to hear about them. It’s like when people tell me, ‘We’re glad you came’ to an event, because it’s a relief for them to think that I am recovering – even though I am not always happy, and my thoughts are elsewhere. More than people expect us to get back to routine, they expect Israeli society to go back to being what it once was.”

Palty Katzir agrees. “People are desperate for us to have an optimistic ending because they want to reassure themselves that Israeli society can bounce back. A lot of people ask me if I am back to my routine. The answer is no. I am not ‘back to myself’ because ‘myself’ has changed and I still don’t know how deep the crisis went. We need to be given the time and the support to heal ourselves because we’re rushed back into some kind of functioning that will allow people to say we’ve been rehabilitated.”

Gome Yaakov, who now lives in Carmei Gat, has this to add: “I live in a surrounding that is entirely disaster-struck. The most significant expectation here is that people will get up in the morning and function at a minimum. When people say that they cannot continue with their lives until every last hostage is returned, it’s not just a slogan. We are in a period of continuous mourning that cannot be contained and certainly not ended before this circle is closed. We can’t hit the restart button before everyone is home.”