The Quiet That Isn’t
There was a quiet in the morning that sounded louder than any explosion — the hush that follows a delivery no family ever wants to receive. Outside a modest apartment in central Israel, neighbors gathered like reluctant witnesses as soldiers came and went with a small box in tow. Inside, a mother clutched a faded photograph and tried to steady her breath. “We were told they were coming back,” she whispered. “But not like this.”
Israeli authorities have confirmed that three sets of remains handed over through the Red Cross belong to hostages seized during the 7 October attack last year: Captain Omer Neutra, 21; Corporal Oz Daniel, 19; and Colonel Assaf Hamami, 40 — the highest-ranking officer among those killed. Officials say the handover was carried out as part of a fragile ceasefire arrangement mediated by international actors and facilitated by humanitarian organizations.
From Tunnels to Tables: The Mechanics of a Troubled Truce
The remains were delivered to Israeli representatives yesterday, after Hamas’s armed wing said they had been found “along the route of one of the tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip.” The International Committee of the Red Cross oversaw the transfer — a somber choreography of flags, paperwork, and grief.
“We completed standard identification procedures and informed the families,” an Israeli military spokesperson told reporters. “This is a painful but necessary step toward closure for these households.”
For families, confirmation brings no neat end. “I have his uniform folded on my bed,” said Miriam Levi, a neighbor of one of the soldiers, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “We dress him each morning in our minds. Now we will have to change that ritual.”
How the exchange unfolded
When the truce took effect on 10 October, it briefly transformed the landscape: troops pulled back from some urban positions, aid convoys entered more readily, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians cautiously returned to view the skeletons of homes left behind. In exchange for 20 living hostages released by Hamas, Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees — a swap that acknowledged, but did not erase, the cost of the conflict.
Violence in the Interstices
Still, this is not a peace. The ceasefire has been punctured by lethal incidents on both sides. Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza say three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire near Rafah — an area that remains under varying degrees of Israeli control — after soldiers identified people crossing a yellow line demarcating occupied zones.
“They were advancing toward troops and posed an immediate threat,” an Israeli military statement said, explaining the strike. Medics on the ground reported that one of the dead was a woman; names of the others have not been released.
Gaza’s health ministry reports that since the truce came into effect, at least 239 Palestinians have been killed by strikes, nearly half of them during a single day of intense retaliation last week. Israel, for its part, says three soldiers have been killed in the same period and that numerous fighters have been targeted. Such numbers — whether issued by one side or another — are a shorthand for a hardship that statistics alone cannot capture.
Bodies, Bargains, and the Burden of Ruins
One of the most wrenching elements of the deal has been the exchange of remains. Hamas has said it is trying to recover bodies from under mountains of rubble — a slow, dangerous process that requires heavy machinery and trained personnel. “Many of the deceased are buried beneath collapsed buildings,” a Hamas official told a visiting mediator. “We need equipment and access to do this properly.”
Israel has accused Hamas of delay; Hamas counters that the retrieval is complicated and hazardous. So far, of 28 deceased captives that Hamas says it has in its custody, it has returned 20 — including 18 Israelis, one Thai national, and one Nepali — according to statements by Israeli officials. Gaza’s health ministry, meanwhile, said it received 45 bodies of Palestinians whose remains had been held by Israel, bringing the total number of Palestinian bodies returned to Gaza to 270.
What this means for families
“Closure is not only about the coffin,” said Dr. Hila Ben-David, a psychologist who has worked with bereaved families. “It’s about the right to mourn, to perform rituals, to tell stories. When that process is interrupted, trauma becomes permanent.”
Families on both sides described an agonizing mix of relief and renewed pain. “We’re grateful to get him back,” one father said, holding a worn prayer book. “But does that fill the silence at the table?”
Gaza’s Wounded Mind
Beyond deaths and returns lies another crisis: the long, diffuse wreckage of mental health. Gaza’s population of roughly 2.3 million — already living under years of blockade and repeated conflict — is now coping with what local specialists describe as “a volcano” of psychological distress.
Abdallah al-Jamal, the head of the Gaza City Mental Health Hospital, said his team has been overwhelmed since the truce: “When the fighting eased, it was as if everyone who had been holding back their pain finally came in. The stigma about seeking help has faded because the need is so large.”
The hospital itself is damaged; staff work out of makeshift clinics and share rooms, stripping consultations of privacy. More than 100 patients are seen daily under these conditions, with children showing classic signs of trauma — night terrors, bed-wetting, an inability to concentrate — and adults reporting insomnia, panic attacks, and hopelessness.
“I don’t recognize my son,” said Amal, a mother of three from central Gaza. “He collects branches for cooking and hides when he hears a car. He used to run in the street. Now he only runs from shadows.”
What are we to do with this sorrow?
As global audiences scroll past headlines, it’s tempting to compress people into numbers: hostages released, prisoners freed, bodies exchanged. But these metrics obscure the lived realities that make up a conflict: the father who will never teach his son to drive; the child who dreams of water and finds only dust; the volunteer who sorts clothing in a tented camp and keeps a list of names to remind herself that each item belongs to a person.
Is there a path forward that honors both accountability and dignity? Can reconstruction coexist with justice? These are not easy questions to answer, but they are necessary. Humanitarian access, forensic teams to recover bodies, sustained mental health funding, and avenues for genuine political dialogue are all parts of a longer, messier solution.
Scenes You Won’t See on the Six O’Clock News
Walk through Rafah or the eastern neighborhoods of Gaza City at dusk and you might see children darting between half-walls to reach a puddle of water. You might smell bread baking on an open fire because there is no electricity for ovens. You will hear someone telling a story about a neighbor who used to play the oud in the evenings, laughter now a fragile thing shared in passing.
“People keep small rituals going — a cup of tea, a radio station, a story about the last harvest,” said Samar Haddad, a community organizer. “They are not surrendering hope; they are making space for it.”
Closing
Grief, exchange, and a still-fragile truce have left families in a peculiar, painful limbo. There is no single narrative that can contain what is happening here. Instead, there are a thousand small stories: a neighbor weeping in a doorway, a soldier’s uniform folded neatly on a bed, a child collecting twigs to boil water. Each one asks us, in its own way, how much attention we are willing to pay, and what we are prepared to do with what we learn.
When the dust settles — when it settles, will it be on rubble or on rebuilt homes? Will the returned bodies become the end of a cycle, or a reminder of unfinished work? Those who live here do not want pity; they want action. They want the tools to find and bury their dead, the support to heal their minds, and the political will to prevent a replay.
What would you want, if it were your family at the center of this story?
