The Knesset Committee for the Advancement of Women held a session Tuesday on state assistance being provided to freed female hostages since they returned from Gaza. The hearing was attended by a released hostage along with family members of Israelis who have been freed or are still in captivity.
Raz Ben Ami told the panel she only “received NIS 1,350 ($365) a month from the state” since being released in November during a temporary truce deal between Israel and Hamas. Ben Ami and her husband Ohad were taken from their home at Kibbutz Be’eri by Hamas on October 7, as the terror group slaughtered and kidnapped residents, while committing brutal atrocities. Ohad Ben Ami is still hostage in Gaza.
“I don’t receive much help from the government,” Ben Ami lamented. “Most of the assistance and support I get come from NGOs and regular Israeli citizens, not the government.”
Ben Ami also called for a ceasefire agreement that would include the release of all the hostages.
“You have to take any deal that’s on the table. There are young girls there who need to be freed. Everyone needs to be released, but I think about my own daughters — if they were held hostage, I wouldn’t be able to handle it,” Ben Ami stated.
“I was there and if I had to stay any longer, I wouldn’t have survived.”
Reuma Tarshansky, whose 13-year-old daughter Gali was taken hostage and released in the same deal as Ben Ami, told the committee of her family’s financial and bureaucratic struggles in trying to receive emotional support for Gali. Tarshanksy’s 5-year-old brother Lior was murdered on October 7.
“We’re exhausted… and our housing subsidy is running out — I don’t know if Gali can handle another move,” Tarshansky said. “I’ve been waiting for weeks to get an answer from the government.”
“I’ve been busy dealing with the bureaucracy and haven’t been able to mourn my son for six months because I’m trying to take care of my daughter,”she added.
“This isn’t normal.”
Inbal Tzach, a cousin of current hostage Tal Shoham, spoke to the committee on behalf of Tal’s wife Adi, who was released with her two children and her mother.
“[Adi’s] children are doing not well,” Tzach said. “She is struggling to take care of her children and cope with her husband still being held hostage while not having any updates about his situation… The medical care issue for her children needs to be resolved — they need to be given priority and get rid of the red tape.”
Esther Buchshtav, whose son Yagev was kidnapped on October 7 and is still held in Gaza, stressed to the panel that “today’s captives aren’t [active] soldiers or pilots. There’s a a huge difference in the way soldiers cope [in this situation] than the children and elderly currently being held hostage.”
Tuesday’s hearing followed an emotional committee meeting last week an on the situation of female hostages held by terror groups in Gaza since October 7.
“Every girl there is sexually harassed in one way or another. It doesn’t matter how you try to spin it. As a citizen, on October 7 I didn’t understand why no one came to rescue me in a matter of hours; so did all the women who are [in Gaza],” said Maya Regev, who was released in November.
Regev was kidnapped on October 7 from the Supernova music festival along with her brother Itay, who was also released during the November truce. “I came back after 50 days and I’m still dealing with issues. I don’t want to describe what they’ve been going through there for 179 days.”
It is believed that 129 hostages are still held in Gaza of the 253 abducted on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and committing wholesale atrocities including sexual assault.
A total of 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 12 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.
The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 34 of those still held by Hamas, citing intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza. One more person is listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
Hamas is also holding the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015 respectively.