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The first message came through on a Tuesday at 3:19 p.m., when my son, Omer, sent a brief update to the family’s WhatsApp group: “Hamas has officially announced: Six hostages will be released on Saturday.” We didn’t need more than this terse statement to realize—our Tal Shoham was on the list.
"Insane!!!" my wife, Gila, responded. "Yessss!!!" my daughter, Shira, added. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," wrote my other daughter, Ella. "Is anyone able to focus on anything right now?" Shira wondered. "Absolutely not," Ella replied.
And me? I was in my study, lit only by my desk lamp, staring at an article about an IDF operation to clear an area along the Lebanese border. A big story in normal times, a nuisance on a day like this. Should I believe it? Should I feel excited? Was there a muscle of emotion left after 501 days of anxiety, frustration, political spins and disappointment?
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WhatsApp kept buzzing with festive messages, decorated with heart and fingers-crossed emojis. Someone reminded me of what I had said back then, when six members of our family were freed after 50 days in captivity, except for Tal, my niece’s husband: “Six out of seven released. Soon it will be seven out of seven.”
But we still had to wait until we could see him with our own eyes. Saturday had never felt so far away from Tuesday.
"It’s all crazy"
On Saturday at 9:49 a.m., Tal stood on Hamas' stage in Rafah, a microphone in his hand, reciting a dictated text. On Al Jazeera’s live broadcast, no one could hear what he was saying, probably a sound issue, and thankfully so. At 9:52 a.m., he entered a Red Cross vehicle. That was it, he was no longer a hostage. At exactly 10 a.m., he reached Israeli forces inside Gaza.
In a locked room at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, after putting away our smartphones, an intelligence officer allowed us to watch this moment on live broadcast. Then, between the white Red Cross vehicle and the blue armored IDF vehicle, standing in front of a doctor and a psychologist who looked excited even without hearing a sound, Tal’s first smile was captured.
The explosion of joy in the room was instant, accompanied by uncontrollable sobbing (of his brother and sister, Mor and Lee), hand-waving and a triumphant “Yesss!” (of his brother-in-law, Yuval), tears streaming down the cheeks (of Anna-Lee, Yuval’s wife), and a spontaneous leap toward the ceiling (of me, or at least, that’s how it felt. A video clip that aired later revealed I had only clapped my hands).
From the next stop, the Re’im military base, we got updates from Tal’s parents, Gilad and Nitza, reporting that Tal's wife, Adi, had sprinted toward him with their children, Naveh and Yahel, as cries of “Daddy, Daddy" filled the air. Within moments, the parents too, were to join the family embrace with overwhelming happiness.
Then, inside the helicopter, up in the sky, using a dry-erase board, a first message is written to the entire Israeli excited nation: “Freedom,” Adi wrote. Naveh added, “This is crazy.”
These days, everything is "crazy" to Naveh, from a delicious schnitzel to his father’s return. Then came the landing at Rabin Medical Center, with the roar of engines, the powerful wind and the partition shielding the newly free hostages from the gathered crowd. A tinted window vehicle was instructed to take them straight to the hospital, but suddenly, it stopped. Tal had spotted his cheering friends holding banners in his honor. Against protocol, the door opened, and another smile - this time beaming from ear to ear – emerged; a smile that spread to the crowd, to the cameras and within minutes, across news sites and TV channels.
Tal is back. Tal is laughing. Tal is here. "He’s just being so himself," Adi would say at the end of the day.
Inside the dedicated reintegration wing at Rabin Medical Center, in the isolated rooms prepared for the freed hostages, it became clear just how present he was. Thin but standing upright, focused, joking with his visitors.
"The only thing I need for rehab is a toothpick," he joked, pulling his favorite type from his pocket which had already been supplied to him.
Just thinking about where he had started the day - in a dark tunnel, from which he was later transferred in a hostile vehicle to a square filled with armed terrorists for Hamas' cynical display - and where he was ending it: in a bright, orderly hospital ward, surrounded by his loved ones, receiving every possible treatment and comfort, and ongoing deliveries.
"Here, take some Dubai chocolate," he urged.
"I really feel like going to weddings"
There are a million things Tal will have to catch up on after spending 505 days in Hamas captivity. 505 days that felt like 15 years to us, so how must they have felt to him? For now, he’s trying to absorb an "ocean" of missing information, one spoonful at a time. First, he must know who is alive and who is dead. About some of them he already knew, about others, he didn’t. Kibbutz Be’eri lost 102 members on October 7, an endless list. And on a much smaller scale, the family dog, Liza, vanished and never returned.
Tal remembers every detail of his abduction. How he, his wife and their children had come to Be’eri to celebrate Simchat Torah at the home of Adi’s parents, Shoshan and Avshalom (“Avshal”). How, early in the morning (of October 7), they heard the alert sirens, then the approaching terrorists and their hiding in the safe room, everyone except Avshal, who stood outside with a kitchen knife until Tal called him in, realizing it was futile.
He recalls how they froze in place as bullets pierced the fortified door, while the terrorists were trying unsuccessfully to break in. And how, finally, Hamas operatives brought in a small bulldozer, smashing the mechanical arm against the steel window frame, prying it loose.
live
(Video: Fox News)
In the few seconds between life and death, Tal and Avshal decided to surrender. One by one, the eight of them were pulled out through the window; Tal first, with his hands raised, then the rest. Tal was shoved into the trunk of one car. Shoshan, Adi, their children Naveh and Yahel, Avshal’s sister Sharon and her daughter Noam were crammed into another car. Avshal was left behind to his lethal fate. So were Lilach, my sister and Shoshan’s sister, and her husband Evyatar, who were murdered in their home next door.
"Avshal and you saved everyone else’s lives with that decision," Mor tells Tal now that he's back. And only now is Tal beginning to understand just how much they all owe him for what happened a year and five months ago.
During those terrifying minutes, Adi had risked her life even further. As the terrorists grabbed Yahel and Naveh, she fought back. “Mother, girl!” “Mother, boy!” she screamed toward the terrorists, refusing to let go until she wrestled the children back into her arms.
As for Tal, even in captivity, despite all the signs pointing to the worst, he clung to the hope that Avshal had survived the massacre. Now, slowly, he starts to reveal glimpses of the hellish months that followed, what the captors were like, about the other hostages who were together with him. He marked his 40th birthday in a tunnel, longing for his family.
"I knew when the date of my birthday was, because from October 7, I kept track of every single day that passed," he says. Maybe, one day, he will share more, when the layers begin to peel away, revealing what truly lingers in his soul.
For now, nothing compares to being a father again, reconnecting with his greatest treasures, just as they are feeling their way back to him. "Do you want a hug?" he asks Yahel, who slowly steps into his arms. "It’s amazing how much she’s grown," he observes. "Naveh remained the same Naveh."
"Finally, it's the four of us again," Naveh sums up the reunion. But Tal will soon realize just how much Naveh has grown and changed, too. He’s no longer an anonymous figure. He told his story in interviews around the world, featured on front pages. He even appeared on Yedioth Ahronoth’s sports section cover, holding a soccer boot, the only one that survived the explosion that destroyed his home in Be’eri. It was the same boot that Israel’s national team captain, Eli Dasa, displayed at a press conference while Naveh was still in captivity.
And little Yahel, with her golden curls and pure eyes, became a symbol of the fight to bring home more than 200 hostages. Her photo graced the cover of Yedioth Ahronoth supplement, then stretched across giant billboards on Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway. Later, Adi would post the heartbreaking, innocent questions that Yahel and Naveh asked during their father’s absence; children who, before October 7, had been shielded from social media by protective parents. Tal will probably be shocked to realize how they became, in spite of themselves, the presenters of the struggle for his release.
But there’s good news waiting for him too, updates that never made it to the underground in Gaza. His sister Lee and her partner Meni had a baby boy, Ori. Daniel and Shaked, Adi’s sister, welcomed a daughter, Ora. Anna-Lee and Yuval, Adi’s brother, had a girl named Noga.
Lee and Yuval had been waiting to hold their weddings until he returned. "I really feel like going to some weddings," Tal says.
Then Mor drops another surprise: "I have a girlfriend."
"Really?" Tal asks, caught off guard.
"Yeah," his brother confirms. "Eight months now. She’s part of the Hostage and Missing Families Forum."
Her name is Maya, the cousin of Iair Horn, who was also freed from captivity, and of his brother Eitan, who is still held in Gaza. A story of darkness and love.
And then, one last revelation, one that might shock Tal even more.
"You know," his mother, Nitza, tells him hesitantly, a mix of embarrassment and pride in her voice, "I traveled to the Graves of the Righteous in Poland. I promised I’d do everything to bring you home. And I did."
A social media star holding a joint
Suddenly, the faces of Nitza, Gilad, Mor, Lee, Shoshan, Yuval, Shaked and Adi, especially Adi, radiate ease. Their eyes are bright, their breathing steady. For the first time in ages, Adi can say, as she tries once again to persuade Naveh into the shower: "Tomorrow, it’s Tal’s turn to do bath time." Shoshan would say "Now I can read Ynet without feeling like there’s a noose around my neck."
But throughout the exhausting, endless months, one thing was clear to all of them: Tal would come back. It became a mantra, repeated to reinforce their belief, alongside an unshakable confidence in Tal's nature, his ability to remain calm in even the most harrowing situations, to keep his spirit free even when his body was chained.
From the moment he was taken, his closest family members dedicated themselves completely to the fight for his release (Shoshan and Adi, who were also hostages in Gaza, apologize, as they were only able to join after 50 days). They pushed themselves to the ends of the earth and to the edge of their own strength, each in their own way. Tal's parents and siblings attended rallies, lobbied Knesset and spoke in TV studios, sometimes calmly, sometimes raising their voices.
Like so many other hostage families, they were forced into roles they never imagined for themselves. Take Mor, for example, he never hides that he rolls his own medical marijuana cigarettes. When he got his first video call with Tal after his release, he was outside Rabin Medical Center, bouncing with excitement, holding a joint so massive it turned him into a viral sensation. The next day, he stood at a hospital press conference, buttoned up and composed, delivering a formal speech.
Adi chose a quieter path. She would meet with anyone she believed could help across the entire political spectrum. One meeting after another, face to face, holding direct and candid conversations. "This isn’t a reality show. It’s a matter of life and death," she explained when asked why she avoided the spotlight and why she was so meticulous about every action she took, or every action she decided not to take.
What she did have to say, she expressed in restrained yet powerful social media posts, presenting glimpses of real life, using poignant words that pierced straight through the heart.
Both in Gaza and after their release, she protected Naveh and Yahel every minute of every day, assuming as much as possible, the role of two parents at once. She fought for Tal as if she had no children, and she fought for her children as if she had no husband to save. She was there - one hundred percent for the children, and one hundred percent for Tal.
Looking at her impossible daily schedule - waking the children up, feeding them, arranging childcare, driving to a meeting, returning home, putting them to bed, waking up again, packing for a trip, making sure nothing is forgotten, unpacking, searching for the missing sandal, heading to another meeting - you couldn’t help but seeing a bionic woman. "When does she have a moment to herself to process everything she’s been through?" people asked me.
Despite the children’s young age, she always told them the truth, even when it was painful. Because for her, truth was the foundation of trust between them. That’s why she kept them informed of every stage of the hostage negotiations, laying out both the chances and the obstacles, never offering false hope.
Even on that terrifying Saturday of October 7 in Be’eri, with terrorists outside and sheer panic inside, when Naveh asked her if they were going to die, she answered: "I really hope not. But I don’t know." She didn’t want the last thing he might ever hear from her would be a lie.
Learning to speak out loud again
During the past weeks, Friday after Friday, like a relentless torture on steroids, Adi would get a call from the army’s liaison officer, Col. Adi Bershadsky (a woman with both rank and a heart of gold), citing the list of hostages set to be released the following day, and each time, Tal’s name was not on it.
How can you keep going for another week like that without collapsing or falling into pieces? You can, because you have no other choice. Because there’s Naveh and Yahel. Because hope is not something you can afford to lose.
Naveh was eight when he was kidnapped. On the way to Gaza, surrounded by armed Hamas terrorists, he saw the bodies of his neighbors from Be’eri lying on the ground, the smoke billowing over burning homes. In the Gaza hideouts where he and his family were held, he saw terrorists with loaded rifles.
When he returned home, he expressed the trauma he had suffered through furious drawings, depicting evil-looking terrorists and scrawling words of hate. For a time, he became attached to toy guns, carrying them everywhere, firing imaginary bullets at anyone in sight. To those around him, it was clear: after everything he had been through, he needed to reclaim control, to be the one who instilled fear, rather than the one who felt it.
From a soft, innocent boy he turned into a little man, nearly 10, who plays soccer and water polo, learned how to surf on a SUP, and rides his bike non-stop. Since his release, he has traveled extensively, often with Adi and Yahel, to show the world what it means to be a freed hostage with a father still in captivity. He also met the pope, who had previously replied politely to Naveh's letter.
He also flew abroad with relatives for soccer matches, allowing him a small escape from reality. In Budapest, for example, he watched Israel suffer a 4-1 defeat against Iceland, but he focused on the experience rather than the score. “The third goal was the most beautiful one,” he generously praised the Icelandic striker. Later, in the team’s somber locker room, he hugged star striker Eran Zahavi, captain Eli Dasa and, most of all, goalkeeper Omri Glazer, because Naveh hugs everyone, especially those connected to his beloved Hapoel Be’er Sheva soccer team, the team he chose to support in honor of his late grandfather, Avshal.
Yahel was three and a half when she was shoved into the car that took her to captivity in Gaza. A toddler thrown instantly from paradise into hell. When her family members who were captive with her were ordered to whisper rather than speak, because their captors feared Israeli surveillance might pick up their voices, she was the first to internalize it. In the darkest moments, she even cried soundlessly. Only by watching her eyes could Adi and Shoshan feel her distress and they would approach to comfort her. When she returned home, it took three weeks for her to stop whispering and regain her normal voice.
And then, slowly, the real Yahel, 'Yula', began to shine again. She turned five while Tal was still in captivity. She was once again an expressive, joyful child, but also mature beyond her years.
During that time, the family found an unexpected connection with famed singer Yehudit Ravitz, who had reached out in solidarity. When they attended Ravitz's concert, Yahel matter-of-factly stated, “Yehudit is friends with Mommy, and with Naveh, and with me, so when Daddy comes back, she has to be his friend too."
She recorded messages for Tal, telling him how much she missed him. She wrote him letters, decorating them with drawings of flowers, sun, blue skies. In one, she sketched a figure with arms spread wide, "Daddy wants a hug but no one is coming to him," she explained.
Once-a-month movie and dinner
Shoshan joined the struggle to bring back the hostages, and she was aiming high. She met with U.S. senators and senior officials, addressed the United Nations Security Council, held a conversation with the secretary-general, joined the board of Hostage Aid, an organization advocating for hostages worldwide, and even attended Trump’s inauguration, where he had the privilege of shaking her hand.
Yuval, who was also part of the struggle, organized a five-day solidarity march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in November 2023, with the participation of tens of thousands of people, calling for the hostages' return. Since then, he has led countless tours of Be’eri for anyone who might help - from Jerry Seinfeld to Likud party officials.
Shaked took on the role of family coordinator, legal and spiritual advisor, and was responsible for the dialogue held with the religious Zionist party officials.
Even Tal’s distant family relatives and acquaintances rallied to the cause. From his 'turbo-powered' cousin, Inbal Zach, to the members of the communities of Ma’ale Tzvia and Be’eri, where he had lived. And then there was us, pressuring for a deal at protests, staging guerrilla actions on highways, traveling abroad as part of advocacy delegations, amplifying the cause in the media, babysitting Naveh and Yahel.
Other matters were put aside, like opening mails, replacing burned-out light bulbs, pruning the grapevines that were brought from Be’eri, sorting through the boxes salvaged from the burned-out homes at the kibbutz. Some things were neglected due to lack of time or energy, others due to emotional overload, like mourning the deaths of Avshal, Lilach, and Evyatar.
But in the end, all the effort was worth it. The first time I stepped behind the partitioned area at Beilinson Hospital, Tal broke from another embrace to wrap me in a long hug (I made sure not to embrace him too tightly). He looked at me with shining eyes and said: "In March, I saw Ella at a protest, holding a sign with my picture on it, right near a water cannon. A little later, I saw Gila holding the same sign. Tell them it really strengthened me to know people were fighting for us."
Two days later, Tal was locked in a tearful, lingering embrace with Ella. "Lali," he called her - his nickname for her as a baby – saying in his shaking voice: "It was surreal, in the heart of Gaza, seeing a sign, a familiar face, standing against..." (he caught himself, realizing Naveh was nearby and might be hearing) ... "Our, uh, 'police officers'. "It really thrilled me", he added. "I’m so happy to hear that," she answered. "That’s all I wanted." And they hugged again.
The realization that families were never meant to sit quietly at home as they were requested and knowing that their cries for the hostages’ release had actually reached the right ears, strengthened also those in Israel who had fought for their return.
Beilinson’s reintegration ward became a kind of family guesthouse. The four hostages who were freed that day and their family relatives, who had fought for their release, became one unit. Especially Tal and Omer Wenkert, who had spent eight and a half months together in the same tunnel.
"Sometimes I see them standing in the hallway, talking, and I want to eavesdrop, to hear what they’re saying, but then I take a step back. That’s their private conversation," says Omer’s father, Shay. "You see them together, and you melt," says Nitza. "Tal tells us ‘They’re my family.’ It’s so good to see him. He just needs to gain some weight."
The lost kilograms will be regained gradually, but his appetite for life is returning fast. "There are two things I want from you," Tal told me when we sat in the family room. "To take Naveh to a Ha'Poel Be’er Sheva match, as Avshal would have, and to watch a Maccabi Tel Aviv EuroLeague game with him." I promised to arrange the first. The second? Not so much. "You’ve suffered enough," I told him, updating him on Maccabi’s bad season.
And to Shira and Ella, he said: "Once I recover a bit, from now on, Adi and I are going out once a month for dinner and a movie. You will be babysitting."
"As long as the kids get unlimited screen time," they answer.
"Of course," they agreed. "We’ll allow that much."
Without the paralyzing fear
Before the time for fun comes, there’s still an urgent battle to bring home the 59 hostages who remained in Gaza, both the living and the dead. One way to highlight the urgency and engage the public is by meeting with groups that visit the Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. Personally, I’m most comfortable talking to pre-army academy students - young, mature, intelligent people with a sense of responsibility, who want to do good.
When you share the story of your family, they're usually focused. But there’s always that one kid, the yawner. It doesn't matter the time of day or what you’re saying, you see them yawning "And then my little sister was murd..." – yawn - "...ered in the safe room, along with her husband."
When you shoot them a glance, as if to signal that it's inappropriate, the yawner turns his head, pretending you referred to someone behind him. "I’m really sorry," you want to tell him, "Next time I’ll try to tell a less boring story."
But maybe it’s understandable. Someone with no personal connection to the struggle and or to the hostages can’t really grasp the reality of the families. For those in the close family circle, though, the impact of the struggle is constant, through the unbearable waiting, through a government that prioritizes political survival over human lives, through sleepless nights.
Aviv HavronPhoto: Herzl YossefNo wonder families of the hostages are eligible for psychological therapy. Some find relief in support groups, others in one-on-one sessions. Many of them benefit from processing the trauma while confronting the pain. In principle, I’m all for it. In practice, it doesn’t work for me. I gave it a shot, week after week. Another chance, another session. The psychologist tried too, gently probing, looking for cracks. She encouraged me to keep at it. But in the end, my tough genetics won out. I finally told her, above the untouched box of tissues: "You made great progress in these three months, but I think it’s time we part ways."
Now, the right thing to do is give Tal quiet and peace. Time for him, for Adi, for Naveh and Yahel to decide if and what kind of help they need. If their lives before October 7, 2023, are any indication, they’ll retreat into their intimate cocoon, choosing carefully who to share their space with, trying to reclaim the 505 days stolen from them. Whether that’s possible? That's another question.
"But in the meantime, we can’t let up. From now on, we’ll fight for those who are still there, but without the paralyzing fear," Adi put it best. Gilad and Nitza knew it too. Just ten hours after their joyous reunion with Tal at Re’im military base, they were already standing in front of a microphone at the Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, freed from the personal weight they had carried. "Now we have even more strength to fight," Nitza said, suddenly looking ten years younger.
"Did you treat yourself to some facial cosmetic work?" I asked. "No," she answered. "It’s just that my son came back, nothing more."
We were there too, this time without the T-shirts with Tal’s face printed on them, just the generic 'Bring Them Home' shirts. And memories of the very first T-shirts we wore after that terrible Saturday, back then, when everything was still chaos, printed with the faces of 12 kidnapped family members, alongside the word KIDNAPPED.
Only later did we learn that three had been murdered and nine were taken hostage. Seven from Be’eri, two from Nahal Oz.
The day after his release, Tal joined the fight to bring all the hostages home. "I feel like I left my brothers behind," he said, "and I have to save them."
He signed a letter written by former captive fathers, calling for an immediate deal. This week, he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Herzog, Adi at his side.
Just like Eli Sharabi, Iair Horn, Ohad Ben Ami, Keith Siegel, and so many other scarred survivors from the tunnels. Because every single hostage freed becomes another 'soldier' in the most important battle. Until the last hostage comes home.