Can Israel’s hostages be saved?

The last message that Shaked Haran saw from her father was just after 7.30 a.m. on the Saturday of the Hamas attacks in Israel. Her parents were in the safe room of their house in Kibbutz Be’eri, just outside the Gaza Strip. The message said that ‘masked terrorists’ were ‘swarming’ everywhere. ‘We don’t think we’ll make it out alive.’ Then nothing. When Israeli soldiers finally arrived, the house was a smoking ruin. But there was no sign of her parents, nor of her sister, her sister’s husband, their daughter aged three and son aged eight, nor of an aunt and her 12-year-old daughter, nor of another aunt and an uncle. Ten members of the family were gone. Hours later, one of her father’s friends got through to his mobile. It was answered by someone shouting in Arabic: ‘Hostage! Hostage! Gilad Shalit! Gaza!’

She believes this was a member of Hamas saying they had her family, just like Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was held in Gaza for five years.