Our son has been held captive by Hamas for 300 days
It’s been 300 days since Hamas terrorists abducted our son, Omer, an IDF first responder, who rushed to protect the residential villages near the Gaza border in southern Israel. That’s 300 days of marching, chanting, protesting and speaking out on his behalf. For nearly a year, my husband and I have worn his beautiful face on our T-shirts calling on someone, anyone to Bring Them Home Now. It was a sprint that has turned into a marathon since that awful day — Oct. 7, 2023.
Our family has been living a prolonged terrorist attack ever since.
My son Omer was born in New York City one month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. I was in Manhattan that day and clearly remember trying to get myself and my unborn child to safety. With public transportation at a standstill, I trekked by foot over the Queensboro Bridge towards our home in Rego Park.
What happened on 9/11 was unimaginable, and yet it happened . . . the streets after the attack were filled with posters of missing persons. The city was in trauma. In my worst dreams I couldn’t have imagined living through yet another terrorist attack — one that drags on for nearly a year — with no sign of life from my 22-year-old son, his smiling eyes looking out at me from posters on the streets.
We are just a regular family from Plainview, Long Island. My husband and I own a small business, we have a second son, Daniel, two and half years younger than Omer. We are private and not very political, and yet we find ourselves caught up in the middle of the most controversial geopolitical war in decades. Our life as we knew it, is gone. The same is true for the families of seven other American hostages being held against their will in Gaza.
As I wake up every morning, I pray that Omer, too, is waking up; that he is strong and is surviving. But at the same time, I also ask myself, “what am I doing today to release Omer?”
This line of questioning has driven Omer’s father and myself to places we could never imagine. Two weeks ago, we addressed the Republican National Convention. “Omer, which is a biblical name that means . . . the first crop, is our firstborn,” I told the crowd in Milwaukee. Last week, we sat in the White House Cabinet room, speaking to President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The day before, we visited the Pentagon, meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. After that, we sat in the gallery of the US House of Representatives, watching Netanyahu address Congress and the nation, hoping against hope that he would announce our son was coming home.
We pray as though everything depends on God, but we act as though the outcome depends on our actions. So far, no success.
This is a global humanitarian crisis, affecting 115 hostage-citizens from over 20 countries, their families and the Israeli soldiers battling to find them and bring them back, not to mention all the Palestinians in Gaza who are suffering. And yet, we are challenged on a daily basis to find a way to tell the story of our loved ones as the media lurches from one crisis to the next. So, we are forced to become diplomats, making sure to keep our plight apolitical in an election year when every breath you take becomes political and potentially life-threatening.
Just this past weekend, for instance, Hezbollah rockets killed 12 Druze young people in northern Israel — yet another tragedy in a never-ending stream of tragedies. But for us, this horror is more than just a headline: How will Israel respond? When will Israel respond? How will Hamas respond to Israel’s response? How will this impact my child — held in unimaginable peril at the mercy of people I dare not even imagine.
For our child to come home, we need more than chants and statements and words of sympathy. We need action and political will. Based on a framework that Israel has agreed to, President Biden brokered a deal that if accepted by Hamas would bring the hostages home and bring relief to the region.
However, after meeting with the Israeli prime minister last week, we question his sincerity, as well as his sense of urgency. We understand the reality of politics — but the reality is that there is no more time. The hostages are dying and many are already dead. Omer’s life, and the lives of every other living hostage depends on all parties making a deal. That needs to happen now. Not in a week, or a month, or another year.
Now.
