Three years after Oct. 7, we have become used to certain words: Victims. Hostages. Survivors. More than 1,200 murdered. Some 251 taken hostage. Thousands injured.
We need these words to describe what happened three years ago. But we should be careful that they don’t become so familiar that we stop thinking about the people behind them.
Before they were victims, they were people living their lives. They were parents and children. Brothers and sisters. Husbands and wives. Friends and neighbors. They went to work. They celebrated holidays. They spent time with their families. Young people went to a music festival.
They had homes with family photographs on the walls. They had clothes in their closets, food in their kitchens and toys belonging to their children. They had plans for the next day, the next week and the next year. Then Hamas attacked.
Hundreds of ZAKA Search & Rescue volunteers were among those who responded after the attack. Thousands took part in the recovery work that followed: in the south, in the north after Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel on Oct. 8 and in communities around the country.
Their job was to identify those who had been killed; ensure their dignity, according to their faith and traditions; and help families searching for answers.
That meant entering homes and seeing the people there through the things they left behind. It meant seeing photos of families before Oct. 7 and the places where people had eaten, slept, played, raised their children and lived ordinary lives.
It also meant making sure that when a family finally received an answer about a loved one, they knew that someone had cared for that person. That their loved one had not been treated as a number. Someone had taken the time to identify them. Someone had protected their dignity. Someone had understood that this was a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister or a friend. Someone whose family was waiting for them.
That was the work. And it made one thing impossible to miss: There was no such thing as “more than 1,200” when you were standing in front of one person. There was one person. One family. One life.
The same is true of the 251 people who were taken hostage. They were people with families waiting for them to come home. All have now been accounted for. Some returned alive. Others were returned to their families after they had been killed.
Three years later, it is easy to know the words and numbers. We hear them every year. We see them in headlines. We repeat them in speeches and conversations.
Oct. 7 should never become familiar. Hamas deliberately murdered civilians. It attacked families in their homes. It targeted people where they lived, worked and gathered. It took people hostage and brought them into Gaza. We should remember those facts.
But we should also remember the people. Remember their names. Remember their faces. Remember that they had families, friends, homes and futures.
After Oct. 7, ZAKA Search & Rescue established its National Resilience Division to help volunteers and their families deal with what they had seen. For those who were there, the memories didn’t end when the work ended.
A victim was someone’s loved one. A hostage was someone’s loved one. A survivor is someone’s loved one. Every number represents a person who mattered.
Never forget. Never forgive. Never again.
