As Hamas releases its first prisoner video, a sleepless Israeli father waits

TEL AVIV, Israel—In the sleepless days and nights after Hamas gunmen were seen taking his wife, daughter and two sons toward Gaza, Avihai Brodutch didn’t know what to do.

The sedatives the doctor prescribed didn’t help, so at 2 a.m. last Wednesday, he got out of bed, made his way to the Ministry of Defence building in Tel Aviv, and stood on the sidewalk.

Before long, hundreds had joined him. They crowded the sidewalks, waved Israeli flags and held up signs showing the faces of the missing.

“The message is to prioritize the women and children,” Brodutch said five days later as he continued his vigil in the Israeli capital.

As Israelis mourn their 1,400 dead and debate how best to deal with Hamas, they are also deeply worried about the estimated 200 whom the militant group took prisoner during the incursion.

The scale of the mass abduction is striking, and has complicated the military offensive planned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Video clips of extremist fighters leading grandmothers, women and children back to Gaza have had the impact that Hamas likely intended.

Foreign nationals, including two Canadians, Vivian Silver, 74, and Judith Einstein Haggai, 70, are among those believed to have been taken to the Hamas-governed enclave.

“Please get us out of here as soon as possible,” said Mia Schem, a 21-year-old abducted from an Israeli music festival, in a Hamas video released Monday.

During the video, what sounded like explosions were audible. Shem was shown being treated for an injury to her upper arm.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Schem’s mother said her daughter looked frightened and was only saying what she was told to.

“My message to my daughter is I love her so much and miss her so much,” Keren Schem said. “I’m begging the world to bring my baby back home.”

“This is a crime against humanity, and we should all gather and stop this terror and bring everybody back home.”

Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida said in a statement the armed group was holding 200 to 250 “esteemed guests” of various citizenships.

“We will release individuals from various nationalities under temporary custody when the on-ground conditions permit it,” he said.

The Israel Defence Force responded that it was “deploying all intelligence and operational measures for the return of the hostages.”

“It’s a very challenging operational reality,” Libby Weiss, an IDF spokesperson, told Global News in an interview.

The military was “deeply concerned” about the hostages but also aware of the need to “eliminate Hamas’s military capabilities,” she said.

She called on Hamas to release the prisoners without any terms or conditions.

Hostage rescues are nothing new to Israel.

The country is one of the best in the world at responding to such situations, said Prof. Casey Babb, who teaches at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

The 1976 raid on Uganda’s Entebbe airport was legendary, said Babb, who also works for the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian and far-left Baader-Meinhof Group guerrillas hijacked a passenger plane from Tel Aviv and forced it to Entebbe.

Facing a 48-hour deadline before the terrorists began executing hostages, the Israelis flew planes into the airport and stormed it.

The Israeli military calls the operation that freed the captives one of its finest moments. Netanyahu’s brother Yonatan died during the mission.

The strategy for the Gaza prisoners may be a combination of international pressure, concessions, prisoner swaps and a rescue operation, Prof. Babb said.

“Historically, Israel has used very creative, very savvy tactics to free hostages, but this situation is unlike anything the country has ever faced,” he said.

“So, there’s really no precedent.”

Avihai Brodutch looked exhausted as well-wishers arrived to show their support. Passing drivers honked their car horns in solidarity.

Everyone wanted to do something, even if it was just to come together in their helplessness and make sure those who Hamas were holding were not forgotten.

Between phone calls, Brodutch said he had lived for nine years at Kfar Aza, an industrious kibbutz with a plastics and lighting factory. It had a population of 700 and dated back to the early 1950s.

Despite its proximity to Gaza, the kibbutz had seemed safe to Avihai Brodutch, who had lived there for nine years with his wife Hagar and their three kids.

“I always thought we had a really high level of security,” he said in an interview from his vigil outside the Israeli defence building.

But then on Oct. 7 Hamas fighters blasted through the Gaza fence, crossed into southern Israel and began shooting civilians in nearby communities.

One of the worst massacres occurred at Kfar Aza, which lost almost 70 residents. Many are also missing and presumed to have been taken prisoner by the gunmen, who carried plastic restraints, suggesting the abductions were planned.

A nursing student, Brodutch wasn’t in Kfar Aza when the massacre and abductions happened, so he doesn’t know what happened to his family, only that they were seen being led to Gaza.

Missing are his wife, daughter Ofri, 10, and sons Yuval, eight, and Uria, four. He has not heard from them, nor have they appeared in a Hamas video.

His brother Aharon, who lives in Toronto and flew to Israel to help, said Hamas was using the family as a kind of currency.

“They want to exchange them for something,” he said. “It’s as sickening as it gets, but unfortunately, it’s the world we’re living in.”

Ofir, a Grade 5 student who plays guitar and loves Cat Stevens and John Lennon, attended a Jewish overnight camp last summer in Toronto.

Her father said she loved the city, and the family loved hosting her. All three kids and their parents were planning to visit Canada next summer.

“Hopefully that happens.”

Brodutch said he was optimistic and believed the Israeli government would consider the prisoners and their families in the days ahead.

“The government owes it to me,” he said.

“I always trusted the army and the government. That’s why I came here, to remind them that I still trust them to do the right thing.”

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca