A few minutes after the first shelling of the Gaza envelope began, Idan Shtewi called his girlfriend, Stav, from Tel Aviv. "Explosions started here. We fold. There's no party, I'm coming home," he told her. That was the last time anyone heard Idan's voice.
Hundreds of Israelis are currently listed as missing. A week after the massacre at the nature party and in the communities near Gaza, there is still severe uncertainty, and many families do not know where their children, brothers or sisters are, if they are dead or whether they have been abducted to the Gaza Strip. As of this writing, ZAKA personnel have not yet entered all the communities and kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip, and it is not known exactly how many dead there are, let alone their identities.
In the middle of the week, after harsh criticism of the Israeli systems that do not provide a solution for the families and do not turn to them at all, the headquarters for the return of abductees and missing persons was established. The Bureau's goal is to focus on five axes – first and foremost, contact with the families of the missing and abducted, alongside a negotiating axis, a diplomatic justice axis, an information prohibition axis and a media axis.
Among the thousands of families currently in terrible uncertainty is a drunk family. Idan (28) was an amateur photographer and came to the nature party in Re'im to photograph the event and spend time at a festive festival, and found himself in the heart of the horror. Since Saturday, there has been no information about what happened to him, after the vehicle in which he fled was found destroyed and empty.
"The truth is, I didn't know he was going to a party because I was at Friday dinner with my fiancée, but my sister did," says Omri, his brother. Omri, Hila and Idan grew up together in Ganei Tikva, and later moved to Tel Aviv. Last Friday, Idan had dinner with his sister, and then went to a party from which he never returned.
Home war room
On Saturday morning, Omri woke up in a panic from the barrages fired at the central cities. "I got up frightened and called my mother and sister, who observes Shabbat and obviously didn't hear anything, and then I went back to sleep." By the time the second volley hit, it was clear that this was an unusual event. Then he also discovered that his brother was near Gaza.
"At 6:50 A.M., Idan called his girlfriend Stav and told her he was leaving the area. It was a call of exactly 40 seconds and then he hung up. He was probably in one of the first vehicles to get out of there. When the second alarm went off, I received messages that Idan was at a party and that he wasn't answering. I realized the situation was problematic and went home to my mother. Since then, we've been in a frenzy, making every effort to locate him or understand what happened to him."
The family set up a war room at home and began questioning the friends who survived the massacre to understand what had happened. "Friends who survived said that he took the car of someone who was not fit to drive, and set off with him and a young woman named Yulia. We were able to more or less map out the road he took. We understand that he tried to run towards the house, but ran into a police checkpoint because they already knew that terrorists were roaming the area. He turned around and drove south, four kilometers, a significant distance from the party that indicates he was probably one of the first to leave.
"The vehicle he was riding in was found seriously damaged after crashing hard into a tree. No one is inside the vehicle. Idan may have been attacked by terrorists, but he's not there. We prepare ourselves for all scenarios. Anything can be. We try to remain people of faith and hope, whether he escaped from the car and hid or lived and was kidnapped, you never know what was there. There are many folds of land, streams and hiding places in this area. We have no idea where he's gone."
Omri and Idan's father went down to the area himself and tried to reach where the car was found, but was stopped by the security forces. "He tried to enter the area, but they wouldn't let him. In the end, they put him in a car and brought him close to the point. He stood in the field all day trying to get a shred of information, to bring my brother back himself, but to no avail. We're at a loss."
Three hours on line
The story of a drunken age is not unique of its kind, far from it. Families from all over the country find it difficult to get information about what happened to their loved ones, and in the chaos taking place in the south, they also find it difficult to get a listening ear. Although the media floods their stories and adds information about the missing, what frustrates them most is the uncertainty on the part of the state. "It's very frustrating. The greatest helplessness is that there is no information. I wrote to the new POW/MIA coordinator Gal Hirsch, but there are no answers. We feel blindfolded," Omri says.
Violet Pecherel is also frustrated to the core. Her brother, Eitan Levy (53), from Bat Yam, is a taxi driver who took an unusual trip from Rishon LeZion to the Gaza envelope early Saturday morning, and when the attack began he found himself in the middle of the inferno.
"My brother doesn't know how to say 'no.' On Friday night, a girl came to his window and asked him to do her a favor and take her to the Gaza envelope, and he agreed. I woke up at 6:30 A.M. when the missiles started, and at 6:50 A.M. he called me. He said he was on the Gaza border. I asked him why he takes such trips, it's dangerous, and in reply he said, 'What am I going to do? I'm on my way back, I'm scared, there are missiles.'"
Seconds later, the nightmare began to be broadcast live through Ethan's phone. "Suddenly, I heard shouts of 'Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.' Ethan said 'Oh dear' in a low voice, and I shouted to him, 'Ethan! Eitan!' Suddenly, I heard a lot of Arabs. I didn't understand what it was. I didn't know that terrorists had entered the Gaza envelope."
For three hours, the telephone line in Eitan Levy's car was open, and Violet heard what was happening, even though she understood very little. "I was with the line open for three hours. I didn't hear anything, only Arabs. It's quiet, and Arabs talking again. Suddenly, they drove backwards, with the car, I heard the beeps of the alarm system, and that's how the story ended. I haven't known anything since.
"It's very painful, it's very hard for me. I'm in complete uncertainty. I have no idea if they kidnapped him, if they murdered him. I can't sleep, I can't live. We tried to call hospitals, but the name Eitan Levy doesn't appear throughout the system. So where is Kibinimat, where has it gone? The taxi was gone too. They tried to locate her and were unsuccessful. They must have taken her to Gaza, I think. It's important for me to know what's going on with him, he's a sick person, he needs pain medication.
"No one is in contact with us except for the families headquarters, there is not a single official source. No one told me anything, they didn't say he was missing, he wasn't kidnapped, nothing. No one says anything to any family. It's very frustrating. You don't know where your brother is, your daughter, whether they were taken to Gaza or, God forbid, killed. Nothing, as if the earth swallowed these people," Violet says painfully.
Torn
The challenge facing the families is twofold, because they also have to demand that the government handle the issue in the best possible way, but at the same time everyone sees the IDF crushing the Gaza Strip, and naturally they fear for the lives of the missing family members. Some families prefer not to deal with the issue at all, while others express support for an unequivocal attack on Gaza despite the danger. This is an almost impossible decision, and each family has its own considerations.
"Nothing scares me anymore," Violet says. "May God protect him and bring everyone back safe and sound. That's what I pray for. No one believed such a thing would happen. Terrorists who entered and slaughtered children, beheaded, not even an animal behaves like this. ISIS has not done such terrible things either. They are worse than ISIS. May God watch over our soldiers, may no mother know sorrow."
Omri says it's an almost unbearable difficulty. "The attacks in Gaza are very stressful for us. We know that maybe he's there, and it's very scary that maybe he was in the house that was attacked. I want to trust the IDF that has intelligence and that our fighters know what they're doing."
Israel understands very well that it is forbidden to surrender to Hamas extortion, and that it is necessary to continue the offensive even at the cost of harming the hostages. Hamas claimed a few days ago that some prisoners had been wounded in the attacks, but the IDF did not stop the firing for a moment. Negotiating with the murderers who massacred hundreds of Israelis will severely harm the state for decades. However, it is understandable why the families are very worried about the fate of their captive and missing loved ones.
Their press conference was heartbreaking. The families begged for information, for assistance, for accompaniment, but so far there has been no response. "Give us back the children," they shouted, but the country at war does not know how to deal with the chaotic event. More than 1,300 Israelis were murdered in the massacre, many of the bodies have not yet been identified. At the same time, there are many prisoners in Gaza, numbering an estimated 200 people.
Long rows of bodies
In the Shura camp near Ramle are the many bodies of civilians and soldiers who fell in the war for the homeland. Already, the media has begun receiving inquiries from families of fallen soldiers who find it difficult to understand why the release of their loved ones is being delayed, and even unfounded and incorrect claims about the chaos at the Shura camp, where the sacred process of identifying the many bodies is being carried out.
"We hear all kinds of complaints, and it will increase, because there are quite a few bodies," an IDF source explains what is happening at the closed base in the heart of the center of the country, where all the bodies of the murdered and fallen arrive. "You have to understand that there are many, many hundreds of spaces, most of which come after a long time in the field. Bodies arrived two or even three days later, and this makes it very difficult to identify."
The horrors seen by the military rabbinate are unbearable. Children, women, men, who were slaughtered. There are descriptions that, because of the dignity of the dead, should not be brought here. "People have to trust us, the work is done very well. We have no choice but to do everything at the right pace," they say.
"Space therapy doesn't take a moment. We make great efforts so that there is not a single mistake. If we make a mistake in one space and knock on the wrong door, it will be a disaster. God forbid that the wrong mother receives a message that her son has died. We understand that it takes time, but the alternative is much worse.
"These are not ordinary spaces. Some spaces are very difficult to identify. Bodies are severed limbs, burned, which requires us to work by complex means. We have at our disposal some of the most sophisticated means in the world, a world-renowned DNA laboratory, all the most advanced means at our disposal, but we are still talking about hundreds and hundreds of casualties," the IDF noted.
Meanwhile, the families are helpless and torn by the uncertainty of whether their loved ones are alive or not, whether they have been kidnapped and perhaps still alive or whether they will be identified among the hundreds of bodies in the Shura camp.
"Idan is an amazing person," Omri says. "Last week I spoke with him, and he talked about how much he wants to make an impact, to change the world. He loves nature and animals, and a week before all this happened, he adopted an abused dog. He signed up to volunteer to help children in Africa, is studying sustainability and wants to make a difference in the world. He loves life so much, dancing and having fun. He always helped people, and you can see that even in the last moments we know – he took a man with him who couldn't drive and helped him."
"Eitan is the only one left of my extended family," says Violet. "I'm married with the kids, but other than that, Eitan is all I have. He is all I have left, because we were orphaned of parents at a very young age. He's such a good person, he doesn't deserve it."
"We are suffering," Omri says. "We were in Lahav 443 and in the center of the spaces in Ramle. We don't have any answers. It's unbelievable, we are the victims, but we have to take the initiative to find answers, instead of a security and government entity taking responsibility for it. Someone has to wake up."
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