Today, Hamas captivity survivors Iair Horn and Sharon Cunio appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to deliver impassioned pleas for the return of their loved ones still held in Gaza. They were accompanied by Yarden Bibas and families of hostages.
Sharon Cunio, Hamas captivity survivor and wife of hostage David Cunio, addressed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee: "My husband David and my brother-in-law Ariel are still there. I came here to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee—the committee that, as far as I know, is supposed to oversee the IDF among other responsibilities. Unfortunately, this committee has a direct connection to why October 7th happened and why we were forced to sit here as former hostages”
“I want to ask you: What have you learned from this? Why isn't everything you discuss here focused solely on bringing the hostages home? I looked at today's agenda, and it saddens me. It saddens me that you're not looking at the hostage families or the former hostages who are broken and unable to function.”
“I will never return to who I was before October 7th, yet I'm also unable to continue living like this. I live in constant fear. I barely leave my house. I suffer from both PTSD and ongoing trauma because my husband is still there, as are my daughters who were kidnapped when they were three years old and are now five. I keep wondering: What are you doing to bring them back?”
“Has anyone here even looked at the number of tweets posted in recent days? I saw the Defense Minister's tweet about ‘We have begun'—as if everything that happened here over the past two years was just a game. Are our lives a game to you? The lives of the hostages, the soldiers, the reservists, the civilians—is it all just a game to you?”
“When Hamas talked about a partial deal, you wanted a comprehensive one. Now they're saying yes to a comprehensive deal, and you're only advancing plans to enter and escalate in Gaza City, knowing full well the clear risks involved. You're not even ashamed to admit it anymore—that you're willing to pay the price with the hostages' lives.”
“Who among you gets to decide what my husband and brother-in-law are worth? What price is too high to bring them back? I have to face five-year-old girls every day—broken girls—while I myself am broken and unable to cope or give them answers about whether Daddy is coming home.”
“I wish I could believe someone who would tell me they'll bring them back, when everything you do is the complete opposite. Why do I have to be shattered anew every day? Every day you kill us again—us and them. And it seems like none of you care. Life goes on as usual.”
All the committees continue here, you go on recess, you raise a toast. What about them? They're rotting underground, and God knows how they're even surviving in those conditions. There are things from my captivity that I can't even speak about because I'm so ashamed of what I endured.
“his shouldn't be happening—my husband suffering there while there are girls at home who need him. Why don't we hear from you? Why aren't you on our side? Is it because they're not your family members? Maybe if David were your son, you'd do something about it?”
“How much longer will I lie to my daughters that it's happening soon? No one can even promise me whether he'll come back to me in a coffin or alive. Enough! How much more can I take? There's a limit to what I can endure—this daily torment—and it doesn't move you at all. Your indifference... I simply have no more words.”
“Why do I have to come here and expose my trauma to the entire world? Just so someone will hear the voice of my husband and brother-in-law, and all the other 46 hostages who are rotting there? Why aren't you their voice? Do I have to be the spokesperson for the hostages?”
“It's shameful what's happening here. It's shameful that you don't have an ounce of compassion—not for us, not for them. I'm sorry that I have to come to this committee and disrupt your agenda just so someone will hear that there are 48 hostages in Gaza, including my husband David Cunio and my brother-in-law Ariel Cunio.”
“We'll probably leave here, and you'll continue with your agenda while we return to our horrific reality—to nightmares, sleepless nights, fears, and anxiety. I wish this would move you even a little bit."
Iair Horn, Hamas Captivity Survivor, addressed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee: "I realized I need every platform, every place, wherever it may be, to speak and to ask. I was held captive by Hamas for 498 days and was released in a deal in February. If I was released through a deal, then apparently that's the right way to free the rest of the hostages who remain.”
“I don't count days anymore, but I don't sleep very well, and it makes it a bit difficult for me to speak and organize my thoughts. But it was important for me to come and speak from the heart this time. My heart is broken, and what happened yesterday was another blow—both the terror attack and the soldiers who fell. We sit here thinking about all of them.”
“It's true that on my shirt is my brother Eitan, and David and Ariel are on Sharon and Yarden's shirts—but we think about everyone.”
“I don't tell many stories from captivity, though there are quite a few. I remember once we were in a place that looked like a basement of some building. We were a group of hostages, and there was some instructions that we had to be quiet. We could hear the bombardments, explosions, and it started getting closer and closer and closer—until a missile fell, I can't testify exactly how far, but several meters from us. We started running. You probably know by now what a tunnel looks like from the videos and everything. We started running, and the tunnel almost collapsed on us. There were quite a few of us there. Along the way, we began to split up, and whoever could run faster ran faster.”
“I was with my brother Eitan, and Eitan isn't a small man, and he's not athletic. We had to run because in addition to the bombardment, there were toxic gases spreading in the tunnel, and we couldn't breathe. While running, Eitan sat down and told me: 'Leave me here.' He's my little brother—I won't give up on him. And he weighed about 100 kilos or more. I started pulling him by the arm, and we're running in the direction the terrorist is telling us, 'Go there.' I have to trust the person who kidnapped me from my home while I'm trying to drag my brother along.”
"I learned in Israel that we don't leave anyone behind. At that time, I was ready to sacrifice myself and try to save my brother. Now, over 700 days have passed.”
“About a week ago, my mother asked if I could help her. She had made new signs for Eitan because the old ones had lost their color from being in the sun for so long. Over 700 days, and we keep passing dates and birthdays. In a few days it's Rosh Hashanah on the 22nd of the month, and also on the 23rd is Eitan's birthday. On the 27th is my brother Amos's birthday.”
“I want to invite whoever makes the decisions to sit with me on Rosh Hashanah evening, with my mother and with my brother Amos. I'm stuck on October 7th. The whole family is stuck. But apparently I'll never get over it. I think the state is in distress, the people of Israel are in distress. In order to begin healing, we need to end this whole thing—this entire war—and bring back the hostages and try once again to become something closer to a functioning state."
Esther Buchshtab, Mother of the late Yagev Buchshtab, addressed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee: "I'm here because I know we cannot continue in this cycle of pain. It must stop. My eldest son Yagev, who chose to live in the Gaza border area—the abandonment that occurred on October 7th is unforgivable. On that day, no one asked us what we were—left-wing or right-wing, religious or secular, Jews or foreigners. No one asked Yagev what his views were. The abandonment that happened on October 7th continues today, it continues with the hostages who remain. I know what this pain is."