Israel’s hopes for a ceasefire rise on Oct. 7 anniversary

The sun shone on the public plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art last week as Or Orel Sharabi played classical music on an outdoor piano.

“I’m here on break time,” he said. “I play here. A little bit practicing, yes.”

The sounds were soothing, but the surroundings were somber. Yellow ribbons adorned railings, and hanging from trees were posters showing the faces of hostages taken by Hamas. The remains of a bombed-out car sat mere feet away from the piano. Just under two years ago, this plaza got a new name: Hostages Square.

“Yes, quite sad, what happened,” Sharabi said. “I would prefer that it would be not like that. Just for people to just come here to celebrate good things.”

Tuesday marks the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that left more than 1,200 Israelis killed and 251 others kidnapped. Two years ago, militants from the terror group Hamas crossed the Gaza Strip border and attacked nearby Israeli settlements, slaughtering some people and kidnapping others, targeting mostly civilians. Since the attacks, nearly 150 hostages have been returned alive and nearly 60 bodies have been recovered through a series of temporary ceasefires. Hamas still holds 48 hostages, with more than half that number believed to be dead.

But hopes have emerged that the hostage crisis and Israel’s war in Gaza could soon come to an end. Last week, President Donald Trump unveiled a 20-point roadmap to peace that calls for the release of all hostages, the dismantlement of Hamas, and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed support for the plan. On Friday, after Trump leveled an ultimatum at the terrorist organization, Hamas issued a statement agreeing to the full release of hostages, although it wants to negotiate some of the finer points of the roadmap, such as the timeline for its disarmament and the future leadership of Gaza.

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas began Monday, with the United States ramping up pressure on the parties to reach a deal. The apparent breakthrough sparked a hope in Israel that a hostage release date would soon be set.

Ilay David holds a poster showing his brother, Evyatar, who was taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. WORLD News Group / Image by Travis K. Kircher

The lost brother

One man who feels the tension more acutely than most others is 28-year-old Ilay David. He sat last week in an armchair in my 18th floor Jerusalem apartment drinking coffee and admiring the city skyline. He hopes his younger brother Evyatar will soon be able to join him and sit in ease as well. 

Evyatar, 24, was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova music festival during the Oct. 7 attacks. The two brothers grew up in Kefar Sava, a small town north of Tel Aviv. Ilay described his brother as the kindest person he knows, a man who loves sharing Shabbat dinner with his parents and sister, a man who taught him to be a better son. The two brothers also share a love of music. 

“Every week we used to play music together,” Ilay said. “Evyatar plays the guitar since he’s very young and I play the piano. Not as good as he plays the guitar, but I do play the piano a bit.”

Two years ago, Ilay was unsurprised that Evyatar was at the Nova festival, as he attended such events monthly with a group of friends. He left for the festival late on the evening of Oct. 6. The next morning, Ilay said his family woke to the sound of sirens. They knew they were safe in Kefar Sava, but feared for Evyatar, knowing the Nova festival was on the edge of the Gaza border. Within hours, Ilay’s worst fears were realized when a video emerged of his brother in Hamas custody.

“And to be honest, at this point, I thought, ‘OK, maybe that’s it,’ you know? Maybe I’m going to bury my younger brother on that day.”

The video showed Evyatar bruised, tied up, and missing his glasses as a Hamas militant dragged him by his neck into Gaza. Since then, Ilay says he’s learned about the dismal conditions of his brother’s captivity from fellow hostages who have since been released. Evyatar has been held with three other hostages in a tunnel roughly 3 feet wide and 30 feet long, with barely enough room to stand up straight. They are fed once every one or two days. 

“They only have themselves,” Ilay said. “Nothing to read, nothing to write, nothing to play with. Only themselves. And you know, sometimes I think that’s the toughest thing. They have nothing. Nothing.”

Over time, Ilay said Hamas’ deliberate cruelty became apparent. In February, when three of Evyatar’s fellow hostages were released, Hamas made Evyatar watch their release from a nearby van before shutting the doors and taking them back to the tunnels. And this past summer, a video emerged of Evyatar, showing him emaciated and saying he was digging his own grave. 

Ilay said he still hasn’t watched it. 

“You could barely recognize his voice in this video,” he said. “I recognized it when I heard it by accident, to be honest, but my sister couldn’t, and he was so weak. I mean, he was barely able to speak. He did it only to get a treat, a prize in the video.”

Ilay said that if the abusive behavior continues it will eventually kill his brother. That’s why he said he’s counting on President Trump to follow through on his promise to cut a deal freeing all the hostages. But he also said the international community must force Hamas to hold up its end of the peace plan.

“They want to wipe out Israel,” he said. “They don’t care about human lives. They proved it for so many occasions. So I’m afraid and I’m worried. I’m worried that all parties will agree, but then something will happen, something will mess up everything once again.”

A security wall built by Israel in the West Bank WORLD News Group / Image by Travis K. Kircher

Pining for reconciliation

The conflict has weighed heavily not just on the hostages and their families, but also on Palestinians. Yousef AlKhouri is the academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College in the West Bank. He says he comes from a family that served in the priesthood of the Orthodox Church in Gaza for almost 900 years. He has a very different perspective on Israel’s war with Hamas.

“What’s happening is disastrous in many ways,” he said. “The Christian community in Gaza is about to vanish. And it’s not because of Islamic persecution, it’s because of Israeli brutality.”

According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 67,000 people have died in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attacks. Those numbers have not been independently verified, and the ministry does not distinguish between militant and civilian deaths. Israel has estimated that roughly 20,000 of the dead are Hamas militants.

AlKhouri said he believed the Israeli military action in Gaza is less about eliminating Hamas militants and more about driving the Palestinian populace out of the region. He said his mother still lives in Gaza, and he has been receiving regular firsthand testimony from her. 

“This is the reality,” he said. “No sleep almost all night … the Israeli [military] constantly bombarded their neighboring area, which is the Orthodox Church neighborhood.” AlKhouri insisted there are no militants in that neighborhood—a claim that could not be verified by WORLD—so “it’s only bombardment for the sake of destruction and brutalizing the local community.”

The Israeli military denies the intentional targeting of civilians, pointing to numerous efforts to avoid civilian casualties, including the practice of dropping leaflets and providing warnings for civilians to evacuate designated areas before they are targeted. It also accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields to maximize civilian casualties to bolster claims of genocide against the Israeli government.

When asked why his family chooses to stay in Gaza, AlKhouri’s voice broke and he teared up. He said his family has a long history there and it’s hard to leave their home, which he said was built in the fifth century.

“So leaving this behind is torture,” he said. “My mom was telling me she prefers to die in their home, rather than being displaced.”

For his part, AlKhouri denounced Hamas’ tactics, saying he found them abhorrent as a Christian.

“I consider it against my faith, actually, the killing of innocent people, even if they are occupiers and settlers,” he said. 

But he also said he deplores the Israeli government’s actions. He blamed premillennialist eschatology—which holds that Jesus will return to rule from Jerusalem—for the Western church’s decision to support Israeli government actions, and thus what he characterized as the oppression of Palestinians. Instead of a two-state solution with Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side, he called for a single-state solution, encompassing both people groups.

“I believe in a state for all its people. And people can live equally, enjoy the abundance, the limited abundance of this land together,” he said. “I believe this is possible with the right leadership, with the right mindset. Rather than thinking of subjugation, how can we talk about collaboration instead of oppression?”

Negotiating for peace

But supporters of Israel point to its uniqueness as the Jewish national homeland and as the only Jewish state in existence among nearly two dozen Arab states. They argue that any effort to recharacterize Israel as anything other than a Jewish state would erase the Jewish homeland altogether. In addition, national policies already grant full legal rights to Arab minority citizens of Israel.

Meanwhile, civilians on each side with very different worldviews hope a peace agreement can be ironed out in the coming days. As negotiations continue, the fates of those caught in the crossfire—like Ilay’s brother Evyatar and AlKhouri’s family members—hang in the balance.

—Read more from Travis K. Kircher’s reporting trip to Israel here.

A poster showing Hamas hostages at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv WORLD News Group / Image by Travis K. Kircher