Elad Katzir who was abducted on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz/Maale Film School
Name:
Elad Katzir
Age:
47
Locality:
Nir Oz
Where was he kidnapped from:
His home in the kibbutz
Missing him:
His mother Hana, sisters Avital and Carmit and his nephews
The first question you will ask him:
What can I get you, what will make you happy?
What awaits him at home when he returns:
We prepared a "new birth bag" for my mother when she returned with all the things she would need.
Elad also already has such a bag with the things that could be saved from his house - clothes, underwear and socks, and souvenirs that we were able to find
what his plans were:
he was supposed to fly a week after October 7th to a friend's bachelor party.
And to come to Maccabi Haifa games, he had a subscription.
Waiting for them at home / Image processing, Shutterstock
Elad Katzir who was kidnapped on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz/courtesy of the family
In the Karmi Gat neighborhood, in Kiryat Gat, an apartment registered in the name of Elad Katzir awaits his return from captivity.
If it's up to him, the family guesses, he won't stay long in the new seat of the members of Kibbutz Nir Oz.
"I believe he will be one of the crazy ones who will want to return to the kibbutz at any cost," predicts his sister, Carmit Pelati Katzir.
The apartment building was not intended for the 47-year-old, who was born into the green landscape and breathed the kibbutz air all his life.
This was also his job: in recent years he was responsible for watering the fields of Nir Oz and the other settlements that make up the "Uncle Moshe" cooperative.
"He is a kibbutznik at heart. A member of many teams, organizes community events, always volunteers and guides. A very beloved figure in the kibbutz," says Katzir.
"He was always engaged in agriculture. We would come every other Saturday and he would take the nephews for a walk in the fields, showing them what was growing and what was being harvested. My four-year-old son asked me: When will the war end and we will go back to picking with Elad? He remembers that he owes him picking pomegranates."
He would also take the nephews to the games of Maccabi Haifa, the team he is a fan of.
"He was single with lots of children, his biological nephews and an honorary uncle to many children from the kibbutz," explains Carmit.
"He is a sweet guy, a bit of a child at heart."
Elad Katzir who was kidnapped on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz/courtesy of the family
On Black Sabbath he kept in touch with the family all morning until he was kidnapped, at the same time as his mother Hana.
Every so often he sent a report that he was in the MMD. "He realized it was a big event long before we did," Carmit says. "In the last recordings he sent us, he says 'we need resilience' and we hear shots whistling around him.
My brain didn't want to understand that this is what I was hearing.
I called him, asked if he was in the MMD, he answered yes and said 'I can't talk to you, I have terrorists at home'. And hung up."
He has not been heard from since, except for two videos released by Islamic Jihad.
In the first of them he talked about the captivity, among other things the fact that he is being held by Jihad.
In the second, which is believed to have been filmed on January 5, he talked about his friend Tamir Ader, whose captors told him he had been murdered.
Similar to other videos taken in captivity, he also appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a request - dictated, perhaps - to be released.
"At today's point in time, I feel that it is important for me that the cabinet hears the things he said there, dictated or not. He said: Don't tell my family that you did everything to bring me home - because that is simply not true. Our feeling as a family is that the Israeli government is not doing everything to To bring my brother home," accuses Carmit.
"There won't be 136 Entebbe operations here. Live abductees will not return to us in military operations, but only in a deal. If there is a deal in two or three months, I'm not sure there will be people alive to return. We already know that when the IDF bombs close to the returnees, they take out Kidnapped to death."
Elad Katzir who was kidnapped on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz/courtesy of the family
In recent months the family had to face three blows - the kidnapping of Elad, of Hana and the murder of her husband Rami Katzir.
In the case of the mother Hana, her medical condition has deteriorated since her return and she is hospitalized in a serious condition.
"We take care of her around the clock. She needs a lot of physical help. This is the experience of captivity, these are the many losses, my mother lost a husband she had been with since the age of 20 or so, a son kidnapped in Gaza, she lost a home and a community. She lost a sense of security. She is very afraid of being alone ", says Carmit.
"She had pre-captivity medical issues, but she didn't have what she is dealing with, for example heart and other problems that are directly related to captivity. The result of medical neglect, trauma, starvation and crazy stress."
She told her family that the terrorists took her to Gaza in a violent manner.
They put her on a motorcycle, from which she fell, and on the way stones and candies were thrown at her.
When she arrived, she was alone for a few days.
"Those were the hardest days," says Carmit.
She later joined other kibbutz members, but the conditions continued to be difficult.
"She was in dire straits, the treatment was appalling. They told them things like they don't wait for you, there is no Israel, there is no kibbutz, they don't want you. And they believed, of course when they heard the bombs. They filmed them all in many videos throughout the period. Only when she returned did she realize how astronomical the omission was ".
Elad Katzir who was kidnapped on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz/courtesy of the family
Thus, the Katzir family was required to simultaneously manage around-the-clock treatment of Hanna and the struggle for Elad's release, in shifts.
"Since mom came back, we've been with her around the clock, we don't leave her for a moment. At the same time, we're fighting a hard and exhausting fight that I didn't believe we'd be fighting for so long. There are days when I'm exhausted - and every day I have to gather strength again. I tear myself apart and pull myself together," she admits Karmit
"Sometimes the struggle is about the very right to be heard. At first we felt that the issue of the abductees was of no interest to the government and the cabinet at all, it was not defined as one of the goals of the war. When the deal was implemented, the entire Israeli people were excited. Now we are left with a complex part, those who remain are mostly men. I am not I know exactly why, maybe because there is an assumption that men are stronger and know how to deal better with conditions like mine, but the fact is that it is harder to fight for them," she adds.
"Senior politicians are trying to establish an equation as if the fighting stops and the abductees are returned - the soldiers' blood will be shed in vain. This is a statement that is very divisive between the families of the abductees and the soldiers in a place where there is no division. I have a family member who is fighting in Gaza and a brother who is promiscuous in Gaza. Right now the most urgent thing is to do justice With those who were abandoned on October 7. Civilians and soldiers who were robbed from their beds. The state failed to protect them and now needs to correct the failure."
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