So many were killed – yet on her release, my mother said ‘shalom’ to her captors. Let’s learn from that moment of grace
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Sharone Lifschitz is a London-based film-maker and academic whose parents were taken hostage on 7 October
So much about the past two years has been horrific, but let me tell you how it began for me. On the morning of 7 October 2023, I was sitting on a train with my son and husband on our much anticipated way to pick up a new puppy. Life seemed predictable enough.
I open my phone and see that something is happening on the Gaza-Israel border. I call my mum as usual, waiting to hear her cheery, relaxed voice telling me that she is in the safe room with Dad, telling me there is nothing to worry about. She doesn’t answer. Neither does my dad. I look again at the news feed. I call my brother and he answers. His voice is so different, altered, that I know already, before he tells me, that the worst has happened. “Terrorists broke into the kibbutz,” he says. “Dad said in his last call that he can hear Arabic. Soon after that, we lost him.”
Sharone Lifschitz is a London based film-maker and academic, originally from Kibbutz Nir Oz, whose parents were taken hostage on 7 October
