Two Sukkots Later, a Mix of Fear and Hope

Over the past week, we’d been feeling a strange emotion here in Israel, an emotion that we had not felt since October 6, 2023: Hope. But that hope has been tentative, cautious and restrained, laced with the dread that we might be disappointed again.

The current negotiations, based on U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to bring the hostages home and put an end to the death and destruction in Gaza, seem to have succeeded.  

Dare we believe it?  Maybe we have to learn how to hope again.

According to a recent poll, 66 percent of Israelis say the time has come to end the war in Gaza, especially because it endangers the hostages. Collectively, we have long wanted to go back to the world we seem to remember living in before October 7, 2023, before nearly every family in Israel was touched by loss, grief, trauma and fear. To go back to the landscapes we lived in that weren’t filled with posters of the faces of the hostages, alive and dead.

“Trump gives me a feeling that he cares more about the Nobel Prize than about anything else. But who cares why he does it—as long as there is an agreement and this nightmare ends and we can all breathe again.”

This October 7, we were still afraid to exhale, to breathe, to believe. Jewish Israelis observed the beginning of Sukkot, the 8-day harvest festival when we are commanded to be happy. Most businesses and all government offices were shut down, and the government delayed the official remembrances of the war until October 16. But the kibbutzim near Gaza and the survivors of the Nova massacre and their families observed October 7, the date when everything changed.

As I joined with a group of friends in a sukkah, as we do every year, we created our own rituals. We observed a moment of silence in commemoration of those who were murdered. We talked about those we have lost, about our children who have served long months in the military reserves, risking their lives in a war many of them, and many of us, have long stopped supporting. We talked about destruction and starvation in Gaza. We embraced our community that has given us the strength to move on, even when we have felt that we can’t.  

But most of us agreed that we didn’t dare to be hopeful. Not yet. Too much could still go wrong, we warned ourselves.

By early Thursday morning, Israel time, the announcement came that the hostages would be coming home early next week. We want to be jubilant, but we know that things could still go wrong. And that after the hostages do come home, there will be hard times, perhaps even harder times, ahead.

Earlier this week, at the Tribe of Nova’s commemoration ceremony for the families of victims and survivors of the Nova music rave on October 7, Eli, 79, a retired middle-ranking member of the Israeli security forces, watched the projection onto a large screen of the faces of the nearly 400 revelers who were killed by Hamas terrorists. His daughter survived the massacre by hiding under dead bodies for hours, and she has still not, in his words, “returned to normal. Maybe she never will.” 

Eli did not want to give his full name, because he wants to protect his daughter.

Asked whether he was hopeful about the negotiations, he focused on the difficulties. “Hamas can still destroy the agreement,” he said, “and it might, since the agreement is a complete surrender on their part, and Trump and [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] are constantly presenting the agreement as an Israeli victory. I don’t need an Israeli victory—it’s just making things more difficult.”

He listed all potential sticking points: the non-negotiable demand that Hamas disarm, decommission and relinquish its power; the list of the Hamas prisoners to be released; the timetable for Israel’s withdrawal and the lines of redeployment—and details we still don’t know anything about.

“Who knows if Hamas will capitulate?” he asked rhetorically, sighing heavily. “Hamas is an evil enemy. They have betrayed their own people, they have allowed Gaza to be destroyed, they have allowed their own people to starve—I don’t know if they will be willing to give in now.”

Sitting next to him, Shelly Aloni, a retired history teacher whose niece also survived the massacre, nodded in gloomy agreement. “It’s ridiculous that the whole agreement, the whole future of the region, the fate of the hostages, of our soldiers, and of the Palestinians, too, is dependent on the whims of a vicious terrorist organization,” she said.

But then she sat up very straight and raised her voice. “I don’t expect much from Hamas. But what really angers me is that I don’t know if I can expect much from my prime minister either. He has done everything he can to keep the war going. He has rejected every possible agreement. He has tried to delegitimize the hostage families’ groups. He sabotaged agreements. He even went against the professional opinion of the army’s leaders and insisted on going into Gaza City.”

Her voice became louder. “And why? For what? To keep his coalition alive, so that he can stay in power.”

She is not alone in her opinions. Despite Netanyahu’s public support for Trump’s plan, 64 percent of Israelis are skeptical that he will actually implement all of its provisions. 

“Netanyahu has never listened to any of us,” said Eli. “He only listens to the extremists who could bring his government down. It’s pretty sad to say, but I count on Trump more than I count on Netanyahu, that’s for sure. We know he listens to us.”

Demonstrations have been held throughout the country several times a week for nearly the entire two years since the massacre, focused on bringing the hostages home and ending the war. Organizers have called on the public to continue to demonstrate in order to support Trump’s plan.  

They point to Trump’s statement last Friday, in which he declared that Israelis “have signs with my name on them, and they love me, and they are asking for two things: Please bring back the hostages and end the war.” Trump later posted pictures of the signs on Truth Social.

“Of course I hope the agreement will happen. If only! If only! But the road ahead is really long and hard. We will have to face the difficulties of trying to heal ourselves and we will have to make peace with all that we have done to ourselves and to others.”

And now that an agreement seems to have been reached, Aloni continues to give the credit to Trump rather than to Netanyahu. “Trump gives me a feeling that he cares more about the Nobel Prize than about anything else. But who cares why he does it—as long as there is an agreement and this nightmare ends and we can all breathe again,” she says. “As long as he can force Netanyahu to make the deal. That’s all I care about. I feel hopeful for the first time in two years, but it’s not thanks to my own government.”

Tali Binar, 30, is a survivor of the Nova massacre. She says she’s hopeful but also frightened about what is to come. Binar is featured in Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary Screams Before Silence, talking about the sexual violence committed by Hamas. 

Once the hostages come home, Binar says, “We will have to deal with everything that we haven’t dealt with because we have focused on bringing them home. We will have to deal with the failures of this government. With the lies. With the fact that there still hasn’t been a commission of inquiry to tell us the truth, of how this catastrophe happened and who should be taking responsibility. And why it has taken so long.

“Of course I hope the agreement will happen. If only! If only! But the road ahead is really long and hard. I know that it will take years for the hostages to heal. But all of Israeli society will have to heal, too. We will have to face the difficulties of trying to heal ourselves and we will have to make peace with all that we have done to ourselves and to others.”

In the name of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an ad-hoc group that represents most of the families, Omer Shem Tov, who was released from captivity in Gaza after 505 days in the last agreement with Hamas, released a written statement that represents the mixed feelings in Israel at this moment.

“With all the joy and happiness, I have to say—this isn’t over yet. Let’s keep praying, sending positive energy, keep fighting until they all come back. I imagine that moment when they cross the border and arrive in Israel, and we who returned last will finally experience the homecoming of the hostages we’ve been waiting for so desperately.

How they’ll cross over [the border]…How they will finally be able to shower, put on their own clothes from their own closet, and then see their parents again. How much happiness, how much light they will bring to this nation—you can’t even imagine how much light they will bring. I’m just waiting for us all to be able to heal again and become a united, whole people.”