The sorrow and the anguish are over-powering. Why? How could this happen? And the healing? What healing? Will it ever begin? Will it ever become sufficient enough to move beyond the pain and the dreams of revenge?

This from frontpagemag.com.

The sorrow for the families and loved-ones of those fiendishly murdered on October 7, when Hamas killers came down like wolves on the fold, on the helpless innocent kibbutzim, and beheaded babies, burned children alive, gang-raped, tortured, and murdered young girls, the women whose breasts were sliced off, the men whose genitalia were cut off and eyes gouged out.

The children murdered in front of their parents, the parents in front of their children. The killers’ laughter as they shot women in their vulvas, cut open a pregnant woman’s stomach to murder her baby before killing her, the hilarity of kicking a head, like a soccer ball, in the yard, the filming of one another as they raped and mutilated and murdered. What fun! What sick fun!

And what about the Hamas operative who called his mother to excitedly tell her:

Mom, I killed ten Jews! I killed ten Jews with my own hands.

Then there is the anguish of the families of the hostages. Of the original 245 believed to have been taken, how many has Hamas killed? How many are still gloriously alive?

The Israelis have recovered the bodies of eight hostages and believe that twenty other hostages have been murdered by Hamas.

The anguishing thoughts, the prayers, the begging inside and down to their souls.

‘Is it my child, my children, my mother, my father, my sister, my brother? Who is still alive and who has been killed?’

‘And when do we find out about our loved ones? Next week, next month? Months to come?’

And results seem to depend on negotiations over the next hostage-for-prisoner swap that may, or may not, take place. More worry. And fear that IDF soldiers might misidentify a relative held hostage as a member of Hamas.

Three Israelis have already been killed from such a mistake. …no idea what it would take—say, the killing of Yahya Sinwar—to prompt Hamas to summarily execute hostages. Will it be a relative, or someone else’s, or two dozen at once, who will receive a bullet in the back of the neck?

The worry is everywhere and it is endless, and it hurts so very damn much.

However, behold, two sisters, Dafna and Ella Elyakim, who were taken on October 7, were released in the hostage-for-prisoner swap and were met by their mother.

So heart rendering yet so abundantly relieving was the embrace, the hug between the three of them, signifying “we must never be separated again.”

This mother was reunited with her daughters after campaigning for their release on X, Jerusalem Post, November 28, 2023:

Maayan Zin – an Israeli mother whose two daughters Dafna Elyakim, 15, and Ella Elyakim, 8, were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and brought into Gaza as hostages—had been rallying on their behalf on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), demanding their release from Hamas captivity.

Her nightmare came to an end on Sunday after Israel secured their release, among the 17 people released by Hamas on the third day of the war’s ‘pause’ in exchange for 39 Palestinian prisoners.

The family’s emotional reaction was captured on video and shared by Zin on social media.

Maayan, Dafna, and Ella are embracing in a video HERE.

And you can see all three—the mother and her two just-freed daughters—even more tightly entwined, in the photograph posted HERE.

These girls are home, their healing can begin, the family’s healing can begin. But imagine the horror these girls experienced. Now ask yourselves, ‘Will these girls, will this family, will this nation ever really be able to heal fully?’

May God damn Hamas !!