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Tamir Kalifa for NPR
TEL AVIV — Each night when it turned darkish, earlier than guards turned on a light-weight, Israeli hostage Luis Har advised his fellow captives a narrative.
“I’ve a wealthy previous of tales,” Har, 71, says. “It helped us go the time.”
Storytelling, and touring in his creativeness, had been among the ways in which Har, an accountant, dancer and actor, endured 129 days in captivity in southern Gaza. A dramatic Israeli commando raid Feb. 12 rescued him and one other hostage — the final time any Israeli hostages in Gaza had been freed.
Greater than 1,200 individuals had been killed and greater than 250 hostages had been taken captive within the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on southern Israel, in response to the Israeli authorities. About half the hostages had been launched in a November cease-fire deal. Greater than 130 stay. Lots of them are nonetheless presumed to be alive.
In an interview with NPR on the headquarters of the primary advocacy group representing households of Israeli hostages in Gaza, Har revealed private particulars of his captivity, his reflections on his rescue operation — and why he doesn’t need Israel to hold out army raids to free the remaining hostages from Gaza.
The seize
When Hamas rockets began flying into Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, it did not appear uncommon to Har and his household.
Initially from Argentina, he lived in a kibbutz close to the Gaza border. He was along with his associate and her brother, sister and niece on Oct. 7. Because the rocket fireplace intensified, they turned on the TV and watched protection of Hamas attackers getting into cities and kibbutz communities close by.
“All of us gathered within the protected room and we mentioned, a couple of minutes and we’ll get out,” he says. “We heard pounding on the door, breaking glass home windows. Immediately, we heard Arabic. They broke into the home … We had been in complete shock.”
Dylan Martinez/REUTERS
The captivity
Armed males pressured all 5 of them onto the again of a pickup truck, making them sit on a pile of weapons. They had been pushed away and led on foot via a tunnel for hours. Then they climbed up a ladder to sunlight in Gaza.
Har says they had been moved from one house to a different, and ultimately delivered to an condominium, the place they had been all stored in a single room. 4 armed males guarded them. His associate’s 17-year-old niece had introduced alongside Bella, her Shih Tzu.
“To start with, they had been all the time suspicious and with their weapons, and they might shout. And we ignored it,” Har recollects.
Har says the guards didn’t harass anybody bodily, however the captives had been most afraid for the 17-year-old woman.
“One of many guards fixated on her and would inform the woman on a regular basis he wished to marry her,” he recollects. “And we advised her to show round, to fake she was sleeping. She was very tense and pressured and cried a number of instances, quietly, so they would not hear. We tried to calm her. We did not say it out loud, however every certainly one of us, inside ourselves, was nervous.”
The tales
The 5 captives did not have a radio or TV. Their captors would inform them bits and items concerning the battle, like when the Israeli military mistakenly killed three different hostages. It was true, however they did not know whether or not to imagine what they had been advised.
Each night, it could develop darkish earlier than the guards turned on the sunshine, and the captives had a ritual: Har’s associate’s niece would ask him to inform a narrative. He is a people dancer, so he’d speak about dance. He acts in musical theater. He drew on his experiences and did his finest to amuse his family members.
“As soon as, we had been in a present. And one of many women lifted her leg, and her shoe flew off her foot. And it did this within the air, increase, and fell on the viewers. We burst out laughing,” he says. “Tales like that, normally humorous issues to go the time.”
The farewell
After 53 days, Har’s associate and her sister and niece had been freed, together with Bella the canine, as a part of a November cease-fire and hostage deal. Har was overjoyed that his household again in Israel would study he was alive. He and his associate’s brother, Fernando Simon Marman, had been advised by their captors that they’d even be freed in just a few days. Then the cease-fire broke down.
“It was Friday, 7 within the morning. We immediately heard the explosions. We understood, that is it. We’re not leaving,” he says.
“Each time we fell into despair, we overcame it with tales. We began to say, the place are we going to journey to as we speak in our minds? So as we speak we’re in Argentina. And we’re doing this, and we’re doing that.”
The rescue
On Feb. 12, 129 days into their captivity, Har and Marman had been woken up in the course of the evening by an enormous explosion. Har thought the Israeli army, often known as the Israel Protection Forces, was bombing the constructing they had been in.
“Somebody grabbed my leg. He mentioned my title — Luis. He mentioned, IDF, IDF. We got here to take you house.”
In the course of the rescue raid, the Israeli army carried out large-scale airstrikes in Rafah as a diversion to offer cowl to the particular forces. Greater than 70 Palestinian males, ladies and kids had been killed in these strikes, and greater than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed because the battle started, in response to Gaza well being officers.
“I do not know,” Har says, when requested about Palestinians killed within the rescue raid. “It is not my enterprise. The army can reply you. I see that the general public there are Hamas. They do not intend to pet us and to like us, and I’ve no mercy towards them in the intervening time.”
Susana Vera/REUTERS
The aftermath
To deal with life after captivity, Har is working with psychologists who suggest he not return house but to his kibbutz on the Gaza border. He and his associate live briefly in a lodge.
What has given him power is getting again to what he loves: people dancing with a dance troupe.
Har says the one manner for Israel to rescue the remaining hostages will not be via a rescue raid — which he says would endanger each troopers and captives — however via negotiation with Hamas, resulting in an settlement for exchanging Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners, together with these convicted of killing Israelis.
“An alternate,” Har says. “Our individuals for his or her murderers. As a result of even when they’re murderers, the primary factor is to return all of the hostages to their houses. They should be right here and be given remedy right here.”
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