The home of David Cunio, a hostage who was abducted by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, sits empty the Nir Oz kibbutz on Dec. 5, 2024. (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)
TEL AVIV — When Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire in late January, Sharon Cunio suspected her husband David would not be among the first of the Israeli hostages to come home. He was a young man and, she surmised, a high-value bargaining chip that Hamas would keep until later phases of the ceasefire.
On Tuesday, Israel resumed its aerial bombardment of Gaza, and Cunio said her “world collapsed.” She imagined him languishing in the tunnels under Gaza and feared he would die under the rubble or be killed by his captors.
Cunio, like dozens of Israelis whose relatives are still in captivity, said she was shocked and terrified by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to restart the war. The massive airstrikes were followed Wednesday by further bombing and the deployment of Israeli ground forces into a strategic corridor dividing the Gaza Strip.
At mass demonstrations in various Israeli cities this week, protesters have rallied on behalf of the hostages, arguing that Netanyahu’s stated goal of bombing Hamas into surrender is impractical and that time is running out to save those captives who are still alive.
David was taken hostage, along with his wife and their young twin daughters, from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel when it was attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. A month later, Sharon Cunio and their daughters were released during a previous ceasefire. Since then, she and the girls, now 4 years old, sing to David every morning and speak to him through photos, which the twins keep close at hand, including in a drawer at day care.
For the past year and a half, Cunio said she told them their father was “waiting in a long line, and was still waiting for his turn” to be freed. She hopes hasn’t been “lying” to them.
Among the 59 hostages still in Hamas captivity, 24 are presumed to remain alive. They include young soldiers, other men under the age of 50, one Thai man, one Nepalese man and others who were not released on “humanitarian” grounds during the first 42-day phase of the truce.
The hostages’ families — as well as Israelis who had been held captive and already freed — say a higher priority must be placed on negotiating the hostages’ release than on pressing the military campaign, since armed conflict puts their lives at risk. The Netanyahu government says negotiations are deadlocked and liberating the hostages requires force.
“From now on, negotiations will take place only under fire,” said Netanyahu in a televised statement Tuesday.
Anat Angrest, whose son Matan, an injured soldier, is among the remaining hostages, told Reshet Bet radio station on Wednesday that the family received a call from Israeli military intelligence officers a day earlier, telling them, “that the war would be waged with risk management, but the risk is there.”
Angrest continued, “I am asking, what mandate does the prime minister have to risk my child, to sacrifice his life?”
Noa Argamani, a former hostage who was rescued by the Israeli military in June, recalled the terror she endured when the previous ceasefire collapsed in November 2023. She pleaded with the country’s leaders to not let it happen again. “I told myself there was no way I wouldn’t make it out alive. But then, in a single moment, we started hearing the explosions again,” she wrote in a post on X. “We cannot leave them behind.”
Israeli officials said they began planning this new Gaza military operation in recent weeks as negotiations over continuing the ceasefire struggled. Hamas has demanded that the ceasefire enter a second phase, as Israel and the militant group had previously agreed. During this second phase, the remaining hostages would be swapped for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and Israel would withdraw its troops and end the war.
Israeli officials, with the backing of U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, said they have instead sought to secure the release of more hostages while extending the first phase of the truce, thus avoiding further concessions that Netanyahu is reluctant to make.
International mediators have been scrambling to de-escalate the conflict, in part by pressuring Hamas to make more concessions, according to an Egyptian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press. He added that Hamas has told mediators that the Israeli strikes only harden its view of the hostages as an “insurance policy” against its obliteration by the Israeli military.
Many hostage families say they feel powerless and are bracing for more pain.
Rebecca Bohbot, whose husband Elkana is among the remaining hostages, said this state of limbo “brings me back to zero again, just as I felt on October 8” — a day after he was abducted from an outdoor music festival along with 250 others and taken into Gaza.
Bohbot said she learned only last month that Elkana was still alive. Another hostage, Ohad Ben Ami, told her upon his release that Elkana had been held alongside him. Ben Ami told her that her husband was kept in the tunnels, severely malnourished and forbidden from seeing daylight. But Elkana sent along a request: that his family remain strong. Bohbat shared this message with their son, who has been asking why other hostages’ dads have come home, and his still hasn’t.
“The fight that Israel needs to be waging is the one to bring back the hostages,” Bohbot said. “Just thinking about another war, after 16 months, in which nothing has budged; how much longer do I have to wait?”
Lior Soroka in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Middle East conflict
Israel’s military launched a large-scale bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, breaking the fragile ceasefire with Hamas that has been in place since late January. Follow live updates on the ceasefire and the hostages remaining in Gaza.
The Israel-Gaza war: On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking civilian hostages. Israel declared war on Hamas in response, launching a ground invasion that fueled the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948. In July 2024, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack Hamas has blamed on Israel.
Hezbollah: In late 2024, Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire deal, bringing a tenuous halt to more than a year of hostilities that included an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. Israel’s airstrikes into Lebanon had been intense and deadly, killing over 1,400 people including Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s longtime leader. The Israel-Lebanon border has a history of violence that dates back to Israel’s founding.
Gaza crisis: In the Gaza Strip, Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars, killing tens of thousands and plunging at least half of the population into “famine-like conditions.” For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Western allies to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave.
U.S. involvement: Despite tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some U.S. politicians, including former President Joe Biden, the United States supports Israel with weapons, funds aid packages, and has vetoed or abstained from the United Nations’ ceasefire resolutions.
Middle East conflict