For me, the return of Jewish hostages restores something precious

Although Jews are currently in the midst of the week-long festival of Sukkot, during which we take time off from work, go for walks, spend time in nature, or visit each other’s sukkahs, this weekend will feel very different. Every home in Israel will be closed and glued to the television. After two long and painful years of war it seems Trump-brokered ceasefire may finally holdand the fight can end. With the end of the bombings in Gaza, Israeli hostages who have been kept underground by Hamas for two years are expected to return home.

When Hamas entered Israel on October 7, they massacred everyone. 1200 people took 250 people hostage. Most of those kidnapped were not Israeli soldiers; some were seized from raves in the Nova Desert, others from kibbutzim near the Gaza border, and many more were seized from their homes. Among them were men, women, children and the elderly, as well as foreign workers from Thailand and Nepal employed in the Israeli kibbutz.

Since then, the hostage situation has defined Israeli life and shaken Jewish communities around the world. Hostages’ names and faces are everywhere. In Israel, posters cover street corners, bus stops, balconies and the sides of buildings. Families keep an empty chair at the table every holiday to celebrate their absence. In Melbourne, where I live, giant billboards with their faces are strewn across Caulfield. Even thousands of kilometers away, it is impossible to look at the faces of the hostages and not feel the pain and fear of the collective memory.

In Jewish tradition, the rescue of captives is called – pidyon shvuyim – is considered one of the highest moral acts. For centuries, Jewish communities raised money and took great risks to free their people from captivity. The Talmud teaches that there is no greater good than freeing a captive, because every moment spent in captivity is a living torment. The obligation to protect and save what has been taken from them runs deep in the collective story of the Jewish people. From the Crusades to today’s wars, our history has been shaped by the trauma of abduction and the sacred mission of return.

In the two years since the start of the war, Israel had made two previous agreements with Hamas. The first one is in November 2023Israel released women and children in exchange for Palestinian women in prisons. Latter, early 2025It was observed that 33 more hostages, including the bodies of the dead hostages, were released in exchange for male Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Today, 48 hostages remain in Gaza, but more than half of them are believed to be dead. If the agreement is valid, Israel will be released 250 Palestinian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment along with 1,700 Gazans In exchange for the bodies of the remaining hostages and about 20 living hostages, those who have been held in administrative detention in Israeli prisons since the start of the war.

Even though I live in Australia, I have been following this story closely for two years. Like many Jews around the world, I feel like I know the hostages personally. For the past two years I have prayed for their safety and return to my synagogue, and I have seen their faces all over the newsletters and newspapers. I have mutual friends with some of the hostages currently in Gaza, and their families fought so hard to bring them home, flying all over the world, talking to anyone who would listen, and begging world leaders to help them.

It’s hard to find hope in this conflict. The political landscape has been shattered, trust has eroded and bitterness has turned to anger on all sides. Gaza was devastated and its people deeply traumatized. I hope that with the return of the hostages and the ceasefire, the people in Israel and Gaza can begin to heal and rebuild.

To me, the return of the hostages marks the end of a nightmare for families who have put aside their grief for two years. This joy does not erase the suffering in Gaza, but it does revive something personally valuable that was almost destroyed by this war: the belief that life, for all its fragility, still matters.

Despite the Sukkot festival, I know I will be in front of the television this weekend watching the hostages come home. Because their return after two years of darkness reminds me that every human life is precious. The message worth carrying, in my opinion, comes from Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the Israeli-American mother whose son Hersh was kidnapped from the Nova music festival and later killed in the tunnels of Hamas. HE writes: “Pain has no measure…pain is pain.”

To me, his words were definitive. If after everything we can still make room for compassion in our hearts, then perhaps there is a way forward; A path built not on revenge but on our common humanity.