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A freed Israeli hostage waits with hope for her husband, still held by Hamas in Gaza
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KIBBUTZ GAZIT, Israel — Aviva Siegel held hands with her five- and eight-year-old grandchildren as they walked a path along the edge of this northern Israeli community's verdant hills. In the distance, the three could see Jordan sparkling through the sunset haze as they stopped and picked mustard flowers to mix with olive oil, garlic and a pinch of salt.
This was no ordinary spring afternoon. Siegel wore a black shirt with her husband Keith's portrait on the front and the message "Bring Them Home Now" on the back.
For her, the simple pleasure of a stroll through nature with her grandchildren is incomplete, after over 150 days without her husband. He is a hostage of Hamas in Gaza. She was also seized by Hamas attackers on Oct. 7, but was freed after 51 days while Keith was left behind.
"It just feels like part of me is still there," Siegel told NPR in early April.
Until Saturday, she had no idea if her husband was dead or alive. But that day, she and her family received the first sign of life, when Hamas released a video showing Keith, who is a U.S. and Israeli citizen, along with another Israeli hostage, Omri Miran.
"I want to tell my family that I love you very much," Keith says in the video. "It's important to me that you know I'm okay, and I really hope you are too."
At one point, Keith struggles to maintain his composure and breaks down in tears. Both he and Miran mention the Passover holiday, suggesting the video was recorded recently. Miran says he has been held for 202 days.
For Aviva and her family, the glimpse of Keith after months of uncertainty has given them renewed hope, and reinforced their belief in what they have long urged: that Israel must pay whatever price necessary — including ending the war in Gaza — to free Keith and the remaining hostages.
"Seeing my father today only emphasizes to all of us how much we must reach a deal as soon as possible and bring everyone home," Elan Tiv, Aviva and Keith's 33-year-old daughter, says in a video message she and her sister and mother released in response to Saturday's Hamas video. "I demand that the leaders of this country watch this video and see their own father crying out for help."
Lives are in limbo
On Oct. 7, thousands of Hamas-led militants burst through the Gaza border fence and stormed nearby Israeli communities and a music festival, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 240 captive, according to Israeli authorities. Aviva and Keith were among them. Israel's subsequent bombardment of Gaza, which continues more than six months later, has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Even as mediators and some officials have expressed cautious optimism about the latest truce deal under discussion, for Aviva, 63, and other relatives of hostages, each day of war prolongs the agony of living in limbo without their loved ones.
The Siegels were abducted from their home in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border, and driven at gunpoint to Gaza in their own car. Their kibbutz was destroyed, their neighbors killed and captured. Keith, who is 64, was shot in the hand and suffered broken ribs.
The couple remained together throughout their captivity, until they were separated when Aviva was released during a brief cease-fire and hostage exchange deal in November.
Since her release, Aviva has been living on Elan's northern Israeli kibbutz, surrounded by her children and other relatives, oscillating between hope and despair. She said she had lost 10 kilos — about 22 pounds — in Gaza and could hardly walk when she came back. Her family cared for her, fed her, helped her bathe and did everything they could to aid her recovery. They continue to support her at home and stand by her side in public, but they see she has changed.
"I don't feel like she is the mom she was before or the grandmother she was before," Elan says.
Aviva relishes her time with her five grandchildren, but has struggled to explain to them why she came back and why their grandfather did not.
"I'm against war, I'm against killing people. I want people to have a better life in Gaza, out of Gaza — in the whole world," she says.
Hostages went hungry and were subjected to abuse by their captors
Aviva was born in South Africa and immigrated to Israel as a child. Keith grew up in North Carolina and met Aviva in 1980, when they were both volunteering on his brother's kibbutz in central Israel. He was 20 and she was 18. They fell in love and soon moved to Kfar Aza. For over 40 years, they built a life together, raising four children and becoming grandparents to five. Aviva was a nursery school teacher and Keith a pharmaceutical sales representative.
Everything changed on Oct. 7.
After being taken hostage, Aviva recalls arriving in Gaza and hearing the sounds of crowds shouting "Allahu akbar," or "God is greatest," and shooting in the air.
"They were just, like, so happy looking at us," she says. "That was a horrible feeling."
Over the next 51 days, Aviva and Keith were moved 13 times to locations above ground and below – staying in homes and within Hamas' suffocating subterranean tunnel network, she says.
Among the locations where the couple were held was a tunnel she says was 40 yards deep. Aviva said they were led to a dark room with three mattresses and a toilet with no water. After spending days underground in the dark with little to eat or drink, the lack of oxygen became unbearable. Aviva pleaded with her captors to take them above ground and to bring them medicine, but says she was ignored.
"I was sure that we were going to die," she says.
When Keith and Aviva were moved to a house, they were relieved to breathe fresh air but remained at the mercy of their captors, who were, she says, "so mean and so cruel." Armed men guarding them would eat and drink in front of them while they went hungry, forbidding them to talk and threatening them if they so much as whispered.
On another occasion, a young female hostage with whom they were being held left the room to go to the bathroom. When she returned, Aviva sensed that something was wrong.
"I got up and I gave her a hug, knowing that we're not allowed to hug because we weren't allowed to show any emotions," she says. Their guard entered and began shouting, demanding to know why Aviva was hugging the young woman.
"She was very quiet for a couple of hours," Aviva recalls. Then, "She came to me and she said, 'He touched me.' She went through sexual abuse."
Keith encouraged other hostages to stay positive
Aviva and Keith remained together until the day before she was released. Keith provided support and comfort for her, even as he himself struggled to process the harsh reality of their captivity.
"When I needed him to hold my hand, he held my hand, if I needed him to take me to the bathroom, he walked with me to the bathroom," she says. "He was with me 100%."
Keith chose not to disclose his U.S. citizenship because he was scared Hamas would release him and that Aviva would be left behind.
"Now I'm out," Aviva says, "and Keith is still there."
On some evenings, Aviva said Keith would ask her and the two or three female hostages they were being held with to express something positive that they felt that day.
"I used to say that I'm lucky that I have Keith and I'm lucky that I had the girls to be with," she says, "and all I want is to wake up tomorrow morning and not die that night."
On her release, Aviva learned that her son had survived
On Nov. 25, two days into the temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, a Hamas militant told Aviva, "You, tomorrow, Israel." Aviva vowed she would not leave without Keith. Eventually she understood she was powerless to stop it. When her guards refused to let her say goodbye, she says she pushed them and ran to her husband, who was lying on a mattress on the floor.
"I told him, please be strong for me and I'll be strong for you," Aviva says.
She entered Israel the next day.
Until then, Aviva thought her 40-year-old son, Shai, who also lived on Kfar Aza, had been killed on Oct. 7. With no access to information, she and Keith didn't know what to believe. They had been told by their captors that there was no one left in Kfar Aza, and that Israel had been destroyed.
As she was transported to a hospital in Israel, Aviva learned that her son was alive and that her family was waiting for her.
"It was just one of the most wonderful moments that I've ever had in my life," she says.
Relatives have tried to keep public attention focused on hostages
On a Monday morning in March, Keith's older brother Lee Siegel, 72, his wife Sheli, 65, and other relatives and friends walked the halls of Israel's Knesset, attempting to speak in as many committee meetings as possible before lawmakers left for their spring recess. Israelis from all backgrounds crossed paths, but the hostage families stood out — each wearing variations on the "Bring Them Home Now" shirts, carrying signs with photos of their loved ones and an increasing sense of urgency.
"I shouldn't be begging for my brother's life and for all of the hostages," Lee told lawmakers in the Economic Affairs committee during a three-minute speech. "But I am because there's nothing left for me to do except to talk to you and beg you to do the right thing — make sure the deal goes through to bring the hostages home."
The hostage families have become fixtures at the Knesset, and a lawmaker leading the meeting briskly returned to business. "Anyone else?" he said, after Lee stopped speaking. "Then, with your permission, we'll continue the meeting."
Lee, a father of three who works in a flower exporting business on his kibbutz, has been involved in peace advocacy in the past, but his activism since Oct. 7 is more personal. Every week, he and his family take part in demonstrations in support of the hostages that call on the Israeli government to make a deal. He speaks often to media, lawmakers and groups that visit his kibbutz, as he and his family attempt to keep the hostages front and center in the minds of Israelis and people worldwide.
Aviva Siegel has become one of Israel's most vocal advocates for hostage families
Since the start of the war, 124 hostages have been freed, 105 of whom, including Aviva, were released during the week-long cease-fire in late November. As part of the truce, Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Israel believes Hamas still holds 133 people captive in Gaza, including the bodies of 33 people. It is unclear how many others are still alive.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Israel's military offensive in Gaza is the best way to exert pressure on Hamas to release the hostages. But many of their families say the government should be willing to agree to a cease-fire, especially if it means bringing their loved ones home.
"For many months now, we have become much better at sanctifying death than we have sanctifying life," Lee says. "So without Keith and the others who are still alive, being home alive, we are losing more than we lost on Oct. 7."
In the months since her return, Aviva has become one of the hostage families' most vocal advocates. She has spoken out about her captivity, testified before the Knesset on sexual violence, traveled to Geneva, where she spoke with Red Cross leaders and U.N. human rights commissioner Volker Turk, and met President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and numerous U.S. lawmakers in Washington.
Aviva has said she will not rest until she is reunited with Keith.
At a Saturday night rally in late March in Tel Aviv, against the backdrop of faltering indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Aviva made an emotional appeal to Israel's leadership.
"I have no idea what I'm doing here in this life I've been given, I have no idea how to continue with all the feelings I'm feeling," she said to a crowd of thousands, her voice wavering, while flanked by her daughter Shir, 28, and Lee, all wearing shirts with Keith's photo on them.
She urged Netanyahu and his war cabinet to take responsibility.
"Don't talk to me about victory, don't talk to me about military pressure. Nothing has worked so far, they are dying there every day," she spoke firmly into the microphone. "Do everything now to bring everyone home!"
The family remains guided by the hope that Keith will return alive. Over burgers at a recent dinner in Tel Aviv with Aviva and three of her children, Elan's 5-year-old son Hadar raised his bottle of iced tea. The rest of the family raised their glasses.
"L'chayeh Saba," they said. To Grandpa's life.
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