IN HOSTAGE
»»Passover vigil for missing 130
DEVASTATED Israeli families flocked to hostage memorial centres yesterday in the countdown to the annual Passover week.
A shadow has been cast over the joyous festival to mark Jewish freedom from slavery.
Of 250 hostages taken to the Gaza Strip after the Hamas raids on October 7, 130 are still missing.
A poignant gathering in Tel Aviv’s Museum Plaza – renamed Hostage Square – came as officials in the Strip uncovered a mass grave of nearly 300 people in the grounds of a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The burial area in the hospital was built when Israeli forces laid siege to the facility last month.
In Hostage Square, four-year-old Zeev pointed at an image of a seized mum holding her child and told her father Roet, 30: “Daddy – I knew there were adults but it says there are babies as well. I want them all to come home. I want this mummy and her baby home.”
Roet, a soldier who has been on duty serving with the Israeli Defence Force artillery regiment last month in the north, came here with wife Chen, 29, and two other children, son Alma, two, and daughter Shahar, six. They travelled from Yeruham, 120 miles away, to show support to the hostage families.
Roet told us: “Zeev is extremely sensitive and we have been very careful what we told her about what has happened. But it is important they know the truth and they have learned today that babies are being held in Gaza, not just men, women and children.
“We are religious so that helps us have hope and pray the hostages are released soon.”
Passover is a week-long celebration marking the biblical story of the exodus of ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Jews gathered for a meal, called a seder, last night to read the Passover story aloud. And in Israel,
many prepared to leave chairs at the table empty to symbolize the captives remaining in Gaza.
Music executive Yossi, 51, who has served in the IDF, brought his singer wife Esther, 40, soldier daughter Noam, 18, and son Geffen, 12, to Hostage Square. He tells us: “I am not related directly to the hostages but as Israelis we