Yahel is three years old, he enjoys swinging on the swing. Her brother, 8 years old, reads her a fairy tale while she holds a picture book on her lap. Noam, on the other hand, is 12 years old and lets himself be photographed while throwing a kiss towards the camera lens. These are just some of the stories told in the videos that the families of hostages in the hands of Hamas have published on the internet to launch yet another, heartbreaking, appeal: "Free our children".
In the videos shared online, the children all have the same look, the same smile. On their faces there is the lightheartedness of birthday parties, the joy of games, the pleasure of an ice cream cup or the liveliness of a run in the countryside. To accompany the images a few notes of a piano and a caption for each of them. "This is Yahel," reads the video showing a three-year-old girl, a nest of blond curly hair on her head and a blue T-shirt with a large pink heart on her chest. "She was kidnapped from her home," the video reads. Her siblings, her parents and all her relatives were taken hostage with her. She's my sister, she's my niece, she's my daughter." The video then closes with the appeal common to all the videos: "Bring our children home".
A request for help directed in particular to the Israeli government, to which the families of the hostages turned already in the hours following the terrible attack of October 7, when Hamas militiamen raided their homes.
In another video, a twelve-year-old boy appears immersed in a field of sunflowers. In the background you can hear the laughter of his parents while he, Erez, proudly shows an immense flower in his hands. Then follow the photos of his favorite dishes and the inevitable smile. Today there is no news of all of them - Yahel, Noam, Erez and many others. And the fear that something serious has happened to them increases by the hour, while images and videos of the barbarities committed by Hamas are chasing each other on social media. Many people wonder what happened to their relatives, their friends, their loved ones.
"We will never give up", are the words of the family of Tiferet Lapidot, one of the girls who was attending the Reim rave on the night of the ambush. Shortly after the raid he managed to talk to his mother, while trying to hide from terrorists. Since then, however, all traces of it have been lost. Today, his parents were able to trace the location of his mobile phone which would be in Gaza. "We don't know if she's alive, dead or where she is," they say. We are living a real nightmare."
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