A Night of Tears, Songs and Cautious Hope: Twenty Hostages Walk Free
When the news rippled through Tel Aviv like a sudden gust of wind—20 living hostages were coming home—people spilled onto streets they had avoided for two years, gathering beneath streetlights and fluttering flags as if to test whether joy could obediently follow grief.
It was a strange, jagged kind of celebration: families embracing with the fierce instinct of those who have not slept for two years, strangers holding hands, and a chorus of voices breaking into song. Somewhere, a man began strumming a guitar. A woman in a bright headscarf wept openly and laughed at the same time. “We finally have names again,” she said, clutching a photo of a young man who was among the released.
The mechanics of release
Under a fragile ceasefire arrangement brokered at the end of a grinding two-year conflict, Hamas released 20 hostages who had been taken during the October 7, 2023 assault—the deadliest attack in Israel’s history. The group’s armed wing posted the names on Telegram, a blunt digital confirmation after months of rumors and leaked footage.
The timing was politically charged: the releases coincided with a high-profile visit by US President Donald Trump, who declared the war “over” as he arrived in Israel en route to an Egyptian-hosted summit. In the streets and at kitchen tables, the words “over” and “peace” landed unevenly, like stones thrown into a pond where the water is still rough from long storms.
Faces behind the headlines
When news reports deliver names, the raw human stories can still be surprising in their specificity. The list of released included a mixture of soldiers, festival staff, rabbis, technicians, students and fathers—people with stray ambitions and small routines that were ordinary in their normal lives but luminous in hindsight.
There was Sergeant Matan Angrest, 22, captured near the Nahal Oz base. “Matan loved Maccabi Haifa,” a neighbor in Kiryat Bialik told me, laughing through tears. “He’d run home at halftime if the score was bad. He was about to finish his service and his family had a Dubai trip planned. That trip is happening now, but the reasons are different.”
Or the Berman twins, Gali and Ziv, 28, who disappeared from Kfar Aza’s youth area as gunmen set houses on fire. “They were inseparable—two producers with a shared laptop and a million playlists,” a friend said. “They loved Liverpool as much as they loved making music.”
Many of the hostages were taken from the Supernova music festival, whose grounds still echo with absence. Among them were Alon Ohel, a pianist with dual Serbian and German nationality who had planned to study music after a trip to Asia; Bar Kuperstein, 23, an army nurse who stayed to help the wounded and was then seized; and several young men who were simply attending a rave—eager for rhythm and light, and instead thrust into darkness.
A gallery of memory
Each name has a satellite of memories: a Rubik’s cube found partially burned in a tank, a tattoo of three small dark green stars shared by twin brothers, a planned ice-cream stall in a Tel Aviv market, a father’s sheaf of photographs carried to protests. These are small artifacts of normal life made sacred by the waiting.
“Seeing their faces again, in any footage or photo, is both relief and torture,” said Yael, a psychologist who has been working with hostage families in Tel Aviv. “It brings back the mundane details—the way someone laughs, the coffee they drink—because those ordinary things are what reassure us someone is human, not a headline.”
Proofs of life and the long shadow of images
Over the months, life-and-death negotiations have been mediated by social media platforms, Telegram postings and videos released by militant groups. Families have clung to the faintest proofs: a daringly filmed face in a tunnel, a voice speaking under duress, a message smuggled out through intermediaries.
Elkana Bohbot, a festival producer and father who had been granted Colombian nationality after the attack, appeared in one such video, thin and mute in the film’s frames. His wife, Rebecca Gonzalez, had said earlier this year that she received proof of life from a released hostage. “That small proof kept me going,” she told a group of parents in a community center filled with cardboard photos and lit candles. “It’s like finding your child’s shoe in the dark.”
What the numbers mean
Twenty is a number heavy with paradox: a beginning for the released, a reminder of those still missing, and a political lever in a conflict with no neat arithmetic. Families celebrated, yes, but they also know the calculus of what remains. From a global perspective, hostage releases can be turning points, but they seldom resolve the deep grievances that fuel violence.
Street-level reactions and the wider resonance
In Tel Aviv, the crowd that had gathered outside the temporary hub for families sang an old folk song and then, awkwardly, fell silent. A woman whose son is still inside Gaza pressed a small velvet box into my hands. “Keep it,” she said. “If it helps a reporter remember this is not just a story, but every day of my life.”
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the releases as “a fragile step toward easing a national wound.” A negotiator who had worked quietly behind the scenes warned that such moments must not be over-romanticized. “These are human beings who have been through unspeakable things,” he said. “Safe return is only one step. Recovery will be years.”
Internationally, the releases have already rippled into diplomacy. Leaders are recalibrating travel plans, humanitarian groups are flagging the need for post-release medical and psychological care, and advocates warn that media attention must not evaporate for the hundreds who may still be held.
Beyond the headlines: what now?
What does freedom look like after two years of captivity? How do families transition from protest tents and public campaigns to the quieter, intimate work of healing? How does a society absorb happiness that is forever braided with loss?
These questions do not have ready answers. But this much is clear: the returned hostages will need more than a parade. They will need doctors, therapists, legal advocates, and communities willing to share the hard, slow work of restoration. They will need time to remember who they were before darkness, and to imagine who they will be after.
For a moment, Tel Aviv’s streets were full of songs that tried to hold both grief and hope. They reminded me of something a festival-goer had said months ago in quieter times: “If you carry light with you, you become harder to erase.” Tonight, that light was many small lamps clasped by trembling hands.
Will the world follow through with the patient, unglamorous care these families will require? Or will the relief of a single night fade into headlines and then silence? The answer depends as much on quiet policy choices and long-term funding as it does on the loud speeches in capitals.
As you read this, think of the people behind the names. Who in your life would you race to the airport or street to meet? Who would you wait for, and how long? For families who have waited more than two years, the simple act of returning home is both an end and a beginning—a hard-won comma in a story that is far from over.
