On Monday of this week, the country held its breath. A sign of life came from one of the tunnels under the Gaza Strip. 242 abductees have been held in Gaza since Simchat Torah, and the Israeli public is learning that the bloody war with Hamas monsters is being waged not only in the combat zones, but also on social media. This is sophisticated, cynical psychological warfare designed to undermine Israeli society from within, to divide it, to bring it to an end in its difficult moments. Civilians vs. civilians. Down against down. The public is against the government. Everyone against everyone.
In this atmosphere, even before the celebration of the successful operation to free soldier Uri Magidish, documentation circulated on social networks by Hamas from the place where three abductees were imprisoned: Daniel Aloni, Yelena Trofanov and Rimon Buchstev.
Spokesperson and Public Relations Division of the Ministry of Defense
The main speaker in the video is Danielle Aloni, who was abducted to Gaza with her 5/<>-year-old daughter Emilia. Alongside them, her sister Sharon Aloni Kunio and her husband David, and their two daughters, Emma and Yuli, were also kidnapped. To her right sat Yelena Tropanov, whose husband Vitaly was murdered in the terror attack, and she herself was kidnapped to Gaza with her mother, son and partner. And on the left sat Rimon Kirscht-Buchstev, the wife of Yagev Buchstev, who was kidnapped with her to Gaza.
The families asked the media not to broadcast the video, referring to it in remarks they gave at a meeting with journalists that evening. The family of Yagev Buchstab, who was kidnapped with a grenade, lives in Lahav.
"Be quietly and hug"
"Rimon and Yigev got married two years ago," says Nofar, Yagev's sister. "My whole family lives on Kibbutz Nirim. My father was born there. We are third generation. Friday evening was a holiday for the kibbutz. Celebrate the kibbutz's 77th birthday. It is a very happy event that many families with children come to celebrate, including guests from outside. My mother and father live on Kibbutz Nirim. Grandma, Dad's mother, and Yagev and Rimon. They were at home on Saturday, each in his own house. Kibbutz Nirim is a small kibbutz. Everyone is close to everyone.
"At 6:30 in the morning, it all started. I was in my apartment in Rehovot. There were sirens at my place around the same time, too. I went down to the shelter and saw that there were sirens in Kibbutz Nirim as well. I sent a message to my parents, to my grandmother, to Ligev. I asked how they were doing and if everything was okay. My parents told me at 6:30 A.M. that everything was fine and that they had run to the safe room. My grandmother answered a little later, at around 7:00 A.M., that she was inside the safe room and that there was a fear of terrorist infiltration.
Yagev and Rimon,
"At 7:30 A.M., Rimon recorded a message from Yagev's phone that they saw terrorists outside the window. She described terrorists walking around their yard. At first, they thought it was an Israeli military force that had come to bring order, and then Yagev realized they were terrorists and told her to go back into the safe room."
Nofar notes that at this stage, she and the family still did not understand the magnitude of the incident: "In this message they left me, they were still in shock, but not hysterical. Shock of how it is possible that there are terrorists outside the house. We all still did not understand the magnitude of the devastation, the madness, the horrors that were to come. We were sure that soon the army would come and neutralize the threat.
"During their terrible struggle inside the safe room, hiding from terrorists trying to break into their home, they told me over and over again, 'Take care of yourself, there are sirens in the streets.' At 7:30 A.M., that was the last time I managed to talk to them. By 8:30 A.M., they were dealing with the great danger. They continued to write to Rimon's mother. At 8:26 a.m., my sister-in-law grenade wrote to her mother: 'I'm being shot, the window shattered,' 'We're hiding, lying down. They shoot at us. Mother.'
"'We embrace you,' Rimon's mother replied, 'they're shooting here too. Be quiet-quiet-quietly and hug. I love you, my girl.' Yagev also managed to post on his Facebook page that terrorists were shooting at his house and smashing the window. And that's it. Contact was completely severed. As if all this wasn't enough, a power outage began in the kibbutz, which lasted throughout the day. We wanted to hope they didn't answer because they don't have a battery in their phone or don't have access to it. Throughout the day we had very difficult feelings, but with a small hope in our hearts that everything would soon be over. They must have survived, too, like father, mother and grandmother. I was even afraid to call them during the day, lest they have terrorists and I would turn them in by mistake."
While contact with Rimon and Yigev was severed, the rest of the family on the kibbutz also fought for their lives. "Throughout the horrific hours of massacre, my father was besieged with my mother in the safe room. My mother is part of the community emergency team. We know as a family that it needs to take care of and respond. Throughout the hours, she received people's distress messages and forwarded them to the council. Announcements about houses burning, people who have had terrorists break into their homes.
"My soul went out of worry for them, and there was a little delay in the times when they answered me, but I kept hoping it was because they were helping people. Indeed, they signaled to me their safety whenever they could. Afterwards, my mother and father said that terrorists were also outside the house, but miraculously did not shoot or break in. My grandmother was also besieged in the safe room. Her house was hit by bullets, but she wrote to us that she was okay. Miraculously, they didn't break in.
"At around 14:30 P.M., the army started mopping up the kibbutz, a process that took time. People were afraid to go out. They were afraid to let the army in. It wasn't until 17:30 P.M. that my father came with the army to Rimon and Yigev's house. They saw bullets and signs of struggle inside the house. Shots fired at the floor, there were blood marks on the door, but they weren't there. We couldn't find them. We realized that they might not have been seriously injured, and they had probably been kidnapped.
"In the first few days there was a mess and a lack of understanding of what was going on. No one had answers. A week later, we were contacted by an army officer who said there was a high probability that they had been kidnapped. This was just when more bodies and more murders were reported, and more horrors and bodies that they could not identify. I know it sounds terrible, but somewhere it was a relief to hear that they had been kidnapped. That was the better answer we could have gotten at that point in time."
"We got the video in a café"
"Rimon and Yigev were always very much together," Nofar continues. "They kept doing everything together. Yagev deals with sound, he builds and repairs musical instruments, assembles electronic instruments and plays many instruments. Rimon is engaged in therapy. Doing massages, taking care of animals. Over the past two years, they have devoted their lives to animals, collecting more and more to them. A week before this happened, someone abandoned a little puppy near their house, and they picked it up too, even though they already had so many in the house - five cats and five dogs. They have thousands of videos of the dogs and cats. They loved them very much and dedicated their lives to caring for them."
Nofar shares that, like all the people of Israel, she was informed of the sign of peace by her sister-in-law by chance, via Telegram. "Since the outbreak of the war, I've been following various Arabic channels on Telegram to try to find a sliver of information about Yegev and Rimon. Video, documentation, anything. This video jumped pretty fast, a matter of seconds.
The Trofanov family.From right: Irena (abducted), Yelena (abducted), Sasha (kidnapped), Vitaly (murdered),
"I reported the video I saw to the officer in charge of our case. We were just before a meeting with Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. We sat in a café. A strange sensation enveloped us, a feeling difficult to digest and internalize. On the one hand, to see that she looks relatively fine externally, and on the other hand, suddenly the token falls that she is really kidnapped. Suddenly we see before our eyes that she is being imprisoned in a cruel captivity. Kidnapped."
As someone who knows her intimately and deeply, how were you impressed by Rimon in the video?
"She looked thinner and much more frightened than usual, but still collected and relatively in control of the situation. She didn't have her glasses on. I'm sure it affects her. I also wear glasses, and to be without them is terrible."
"A captive will not upset his captors"
Nofar and Yigev's father, Oren Buchstev, joins the conversation, and I try to understand from him whether he was aware of the public uproar that arose following the statements made in the video, which directed most of the anger and criticism at the Israeli government and its leader.
"A captive person will not want to upset his captors, certainly not when it comes to Hamas. Every sensible person understands that all the text is there and its content was dictated to them in advance, and with great precision. They did what they had to and must do. If you are in captivity, you obey what you are told to do. Regardless, all the communities in the envelope that experienced the worst are critical of all the government institutions that led them in one way or another to the terrible situation in which we find ourselves. But there will be time for criticism, it's something they'll need after the war – not right now."
Were you among those who objected to the release of the video?
"When a video like this is distributed, there is always a dilemma whether to publish or not," Oren says. "On the one hand, a sign of life that can give a breath of fresh air, and on the other hand, it is clear to us that there are blatant fingerprints of Hamas, which wants to achieve achievements through advertising. I didn't mind them publishing this video publicly, but there were those who argued that it shouldn't be published, because Hamas employs psychological warfare through the documentation. I was persuaded and agreed."
Sapir Cohen who was kidnapped to Gaza,
"It's a very sensitive matter," Nofar adds. "Every family has their own feelings and opinions around public publicity. There are families who will not want the whole world to be exposed to the documentation of their family member during his difficult time, and there are those who would prefer to do so. I personally wouldn't want them to broadcast. I don't think it's helpful for all citizens to see that. For me, personally and privately, it is somewhat relieved to see that a grenade is in relatively fine condition physically.
"In my opinion, the solution is to say that there is a sign of life from the abductees even without publishing the content, because that is what Hamas has been doing throughout the period - high-intensity psychological warfare. They terrorize where they can. We as a country need to ignore it, as little as possible to get excited about it."
Is there concern that a ground incursion will damage Yagev and the grenade? Were you angry that you weren't told this was going to happen?
"We were very scared, but it's good that they didn't inform us in advance, or anyone else. This is classified security information at the highest level. If other circles besides the decision-makers had been included, things might have spilled out and hurt the soldiers. We must not take such a risk.
"מיותר לציין שאין משפחה שלא חרדה מכניסה קרקעית. אנחנו סומכים על הצבא שהם יודעים מה שהם עושים, אבל תמיד יכולות להיות טעויות. מפחיד אותנו לחשוב שפעולה צבאית תסכן את הילדים שלנו ואת שאר החטופים. האמירה החד־משמעית שלנו היא שניצחון הוא לא במחיר של החטופים, לא במחיר שמסכן אותם. אנחנו לא אנשי צבא ולא פוליטיקאים. אנחנו מבקשים שלא יעשו שום דבר שיפגע ביגב וברימון, ולא באף אחד אחר שנחטף. לא תהיה לנו תמונת ניצחון כמדינה אם הם לא יחזרו הביתה בשלום, כולם ללא יוצא מן הכלל".
זו שאלה קשה, אבל אתם בטח מודעים לכך שמדינת ישראל שילמה ומשלמת מחירים כבדים מאוד על עסקת שליט, שמשוחרריה היו מעורבים בטרור, כולל במתקפה האחרונה. אתם שותפים לדרישה "כולם תמורת כולם"?
"ראשית, אני מזכיר לך שמדובר בחטופים, ולא בשבויי מלחמה. לא בחיילים, אלא באזרחים תמימים שנחטפו מהמיטות שלהם, מהבתים, באמצע חג. אזרחים תמימים, תינוקות, ילדים, קשישים שלא עשו רע לאיש. מישהו מעלה על דעתו לא לעשות הכל כולל הכל כדי להשיב אותם הביתה ללא פגע? מי שכשל בהגנה עליהם מחויב לתקן. כמו כן, אני לא חושב ששחרור האסירים הביטחוניים תמורת כל החטופים יוביל בהכרח לטרור מסוג חדש, שלא מתקיים כבר ברגעים אלה ברצועה. לכל אחד יש תחליף".
"מעבר לכך שחובה לשחרר אותם בדחיפות", מוסיפה נופר, "הדבר הכי בסיסי זה לאפשר לצלב האדום לראות אותם, לדעת מי באמת נמצא בעזה ומה מצבו. אנחנו במקרה ראינו, אבל כל כך הרבה משפחות לא יודעות. אנחנו לא יודעים עליהם דבר מהרגע שנותק איתם הקשר. העברנו לצלב האדום בקשה שהיא צריכה משקפיים. משפחות העבירו בקשות דחופות לתרופות. לא קיבלנו שום תשובה או אינדיקציה לכך שמישהו ראה אותם, בדק אותם, הבין מה מצבם או העביר להם סיוע רפואי.
"אנחנו מקווים שהיא ויגב יחד. שהם מחבקים זה את זו ומעניקים כוח זה לזו, אבל אין לנו מושג. מעדיפים לא לחשוב על זה. אפשר לדמיין כל כך הרבה דברים רעים. אולי זה נאיבי, אבל אני מעדיפה לדמיין שלא הפרידו אותם".
אסתר, אמו של יגב, מספרת גם היא על התחושות לאחר הצפייה בסרטון: "זו לוחמה, אני אפילו לא יודעת אם לקרוא לזה פסיכולוגית. זה טלטל אותנו מאוד. אנחנו יודעים שהיא חטופה בוודאות, ולחמאס יש מחויבות להחזיר אותה. אני רוצה להאמין שזה אומר שגם יגב בחיים, כי הם נחטפו יחד לעזה.
"זה מפחיד. אני לא מבינה את שיטת הלוחמה הזו. לא מבינה את המסרים. אין לי שום הבנה למה הם מתכוונים בזה שהם פרסמו את הסרטון. זה טוב? זה רע? מאוד מבלבל. אין רשימות מסודרות מצד חמאס. הצלב האדום לא היה אצלם. אני לא מתייחסת לתוכן של הסרטון, ברור שזה נאמר תחת לחץ, כל אחד רוצה שישחררו אותו".
כבנות אותו אזור, אסתר מכירה גם את משפחת טרופנוב ואת ילנה: "בעלה ויטלי, שנרצח, עבד שנים רבות עם בעלי. את הבן שלהם סשה אני לימדתי עברית בגן. ילד מבריק, חכם. כולנו מכירים את כולם.
"מועצה אזורית אשכול היא מועצה קטנה. למה דווקא נבחרו שלושתן? למה לא צולמו עם בני משפחותיהן? הרי כל אחת מהן יש לה משפחה חטופה שם. זה מאוד מוזר ומבלבל, ובעיקר אני לא מצליחה להבין את הסאבטקסט.
"אנחנו מקווים שכל החטופים כולם ישובו עכשיו, בריאים ושלמים. יש שם מורים שלימדו את הילד שלנו, חברים, יש שם אישה בת 79 שאני מטפלת בה במסגרת הטיפול שלי בגיל השלישי. אין אף אחד מהחטופים שאני יכולה להגיד עליו 'זה רחוק'. כל אדם שם הוא עולם ומלואו".
אביטל, אמה של רימון, מספרת על בתה: "רימון תמיד חמלה על כל חיה פצועה ויתומה, וידעה לאסוף אותה, לטפל בה באהבה רבה. רימון עזרה לי לטפל בסבתה חולת האלצהיימר בימים וברגעים הכי קשים שלה, במסירות אין קץ.
"She loves baking, cooking and pampering everyone, and especially doing so with her beloved Yagev, her soul mate. From an early age, she loved growing and nurturing the plants and plants in the garden, which she always had more to bloom than others. Rimon is bound to her brother by endless love, and today they know no rest from caring for her and Ligev."
I heard you at the press conference. You mentioned that Rimon can't see without her glasses. It moved a lot of people, this maternal concern for seemingly smaller things as well.
"That's right. The glasses are a symbol. They stood out to me in their absence, and it was important to mention them out of a whole complex medical condition that they must be going through. I saw that my daughter was thinner, without glasses, not getting all the medication she needed. Both she and Yagev need medication.
"On the other hand, I saw that she was maintaining strength. You've probably seen her hand caressing Daniel, trying to hug her and wrap her around her in a gentle way. I didn't really listen to the content of the video. I looked at my daughter, and I just wanted to wrap myself up and hug her.
"If we are already required to do so: there is no doubt that everything is a show made by Hamas. We all have harsh criticism of the government, of its abandonment of us, of the appalling results. But for all time. This is what Hamas wanted to be seen and heard. Neither my daughter nor Daniel would want to say that in the first video that goes out to their families and in front of all the people of Israel."
Avital continues: "No one from the government or an official has contacted us to talk to us about the significance of the video. At the beginning of the war, amidst the chaos, a man arrived who presented himself as connected to Gal Hirsch's headquarters. We weren't ready to hear him. My husband was very angry with him, he's very frustrated with the government. But then this person explained to us that he was a volunteer, a private person who just wanted to help, who had left everything for us. And really, since then he's been for us, hasn't left us."
Did you request that the video not be published?
"We didn't ask anyone for anything. It is possible that someone on our behalf requested without our knowledge. The only thing I care about is bringing my daughter home. You are my daughter and all the abductees."
What will remain of the Tropanov family?
Neta Yesod Alon and Shahar Cohen are good friends of Sasha Trofanov (27), who is held captive by Hamas alongside his grandmother Irena Teti, his mother Yelena (50) and his wife Sapir Cohen (29), who was staying with him on the holiday. His father, Vitaly, was murdered and buried last Tuesday.
There was no one left in the immediate family who could tell their story, relate to the sign of life Milena. But Neta shares that they set up a powerful war room of 30 friends of Sasha's, from childhood until now. A determined war room that is working at all levels, in Israel and around the world, to make the voice of the Tropanov family heard and bring it home.
"The story of the Trofanov family is reminiscent of very dark periods in Jewish history. An entire family, three generations, could be completely wiped out without a trace, memory or remnant if they are not brought back from captivity alive. Sasha's grandmother was widowed and immigrated to Israel alone only about five years ago, at the request of her family. Pediatrician who worked at a tuberculosis institute in Russia. The mother, Yelena, is a chemist by training, and the father, Vitaly, studied biology, but when they immigrated to Israel they settled in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Yelena worked in Nirlat in a position related to chemistry, and the father was engaged in construction and gardening.
Danielle Aloni (left) and her daughter Emilia, both abducted to Gaza.
"Sasha was an only child, the apple of their eyes. A successful, beautiful and smart boy who invested everything in him. He studied electrical engineering at Ben-Gurion and worked as an electrical engineer at Amazon. Sasha and Sapir were together for about a year, and just a month ago they also moved to Ramat Gan. That weekend, the last evening of Sukkot, the kibbutz celebrated its 77th birthday. They decided to come and stay. Sasha and Sapir were at Friday dinner with family and friends, but they stayed between Fridays and Saturdays in a unit hosted by the young people on the kibbutz. Mom, Dad and Grandma were at their house.
"On Saturday morning, when the sirens started sounding, a close friend texted him and asked how he was. Sasha replied at about 7:00 A.M. that he was really upset that he had brought Sapir to this weekend, when everything was tense and there were a lot of missiles. We assume that he didn't even know there was a terrorist infiltration yet.
"Later in the morning, Yelena sent a message to her friend that Sasha and his girlfriend are in the guest rooms and they don't have a safe room there, and she's very worried about them, but they also can't run to hide in their house because there are missiles and terrorists infiltrating.
"Then there's some kind of conversation without text. A quiet conversation in which nothing was said. A minute of silence. A call Yelena made to Sasha's girlfriend. We don't know if it was her who was silent beyond her mouthpiece, or someone who took her phone. At 10 a.m., contact with Sasha was completely cut off, and we still didn't understand the magnitude of the tragedy and what we were headed for."
When did you realize that the Trofanov family had been kidnapped to Gaza?
"The army has three criteria for declaring someone abducted," Neta says. "The first is the phones stored in Gaza, the second is that there were no signs of struggle where they lived, and the third is the testimony of a kibbutz member who saw them being led to Gaza."
Who is informed of the abduction in such a tragic case?
"The military announced the official announcement of the abduction to those who were the guardians at that moment - Sapir's family, the spouse. Later, when things unfolded, we realized that the father of the family had been murdered. At that point, funeral arrangements had to be taken care of, so the guardianship of the Tropanov family moved to the kibbutz, and the kibbutz very much wanted them to be under the mantle that the economy and the community have to offer."
How did you feel in front of the video, in front of the sign of life of the family whose freedom you are fighting for?
"I was happy to see the first sign of life Milena and the two women sitting next to her. Beyond that, the rest of the content of the video didn't really interest us as friends and family. However, it was hard for me to see her so sad. I don't know if she knows what happened to the rest of the family, about the murder of Vitaly her husband. We don't even know if she's with the rest of her family, if she's with her mother, if she knows where Sasha is, if Sapir is. We talked to Yelena's friends from work. They said they thought she seemed very sad to them and that she wasn't well."
The Trupanov family has Russian citizenship. Have you acted with the Russian government?
"We made sure that they are registered with the Russian consulate, and that they know they have a Russian passport. Beyond that, we made sure to appear in the Russian media. We made sure that their story would be in the headlines, that everyone would understand that everything must be done to bring them back alive, and quickly."
Avital Kirsht mother of abducted Rimon Kirscht, photo: Arik Sultan
Alexandra Friedman, Sapir's brother's brother's spouse, joins the call from Canada, and shares that a private war room has also been set up from her family's side, working around the clock to bring her home.
"We are now on a delegation in Canada. We met with the prime minister, with the heads of various parties, the opposition, the Red Cross. We hear her story on all media channels here, in other places abroad and in Israel. I'm glad we saw Yelena, but we have three other kidnapped people inside, including our Sapir. Yelena looked thinner than ever to me in the video.
"It is clear to us that what is said in the video is under enormous pressure. Anyone whose loved ones are in captivity under real threat of death will do whatever they are told. Our last sign of life from Sapir is from a horrifying video we found on Telegram, documenting her abduction to Gaza. We will not rest for a moment until she comes back to us alive, with everyone."
We stayed four out of ten
I return to Remus Aloni, Daniel Aloni's father, who was the main spokesperson in the video released by Hamas, who stood narrowly to the media with a broken face and spoke in a shattered voice to the camera, barely holding himself for his loved ones in Gaza. With a trembling voice, he gathered himself, and despite the devastation and tragedy, he made an effort to convey a message to his son-in-law, two daughters and three granddaughters who were kidnapped to Gaza – for the small chance that Hamas monsters were projecting this press conference to them.
"We were very relieved that she was alive," he said. "To this day, we have not known any verified details about her, and we want so much to hug her and our entire family. We stayed four out of ten. I ask and demand that the Red Cross not stand on the lines, but take the initiative and demand to see all our abductees.
"I appeal to Qatar, Egypt and the other countries that have the power to put an end to this, to act now. Holding children and women and the elderly, and abductees in general, is a crime against humanity. We're wrapped up in friends and Israeli society in general, and that's exciting. I thank them all, and ask that we not be left alone. Support is important to us. I want to say to Daniel and Sharon: We see you, we hear you, we love you. We think about you every second, and we'll bring you home."
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