The Tikvah Forum for Families of Hostages held prayers at Rachel’s Tomb just outside Bethlehem on Tuesday for the safe and speedy return of their children from the Gaza Strip.
The Bnei Rachel Yeshiva hosted the event, which was attended by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Kalman Ber and Knesset member Yitzhak Wasserlauf of the Otzma Yehudit Party.
Among the family members attending the event was Tzvika Mor, whose son Eitan, then aged 23, was kidnapped to Gaza while working as a guard at the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. Eitan saved hundreds of people from the festival before he was taken hostage. He has been held for more than 400 days.
Mor told those gathered that God promised Rachel that her children will return to their borders. “There is no place more worthy to pray to God and ask him to return the hostages than at the place of her burial, and on the anniversary of her passing,” he said.
At a Knesset committee meeting on Tuesday, Mor said that a family which has a member kidnapped is “a wound that never heals.”
“It’s all the time the worry. It’s all the time the fear of that terrible knock on the door,” he said.
“The main question is why there is still no decision in Gaza, to bring the enemy to such a state that he realizes that he has no future,” he said, expressing frustration that Israel still hasn’t completely destroyed the enemy there.
He said that pursuing a deal with Hamas for the release of the remaining hostages was a mistake. “When we pursue a deal, a deal flees from us,” Mor said.
Kobi Samerano, whose son Jonathan, 21, was kidnapped and murdered in Gaza, recited Kaddish, the mourners’ prayer. Samerano said it was his first visit to Rachel’s Tomb.
The names of the remaining hostages were read aloud. Organizing the event along with the Tikvah Forum were the Kissufim and Ayelet Hashachar groups.
