The poster reads:

500 days. Get them out of hell.

There must be ways of tracking the mood of a country, its ups and downs, its moments of celebration and its moments of mourning.

Social scientists, I imagine, have their ways of calculating. Perhaps they’re measuring such data even as we speak.

Even those of us who are not social scientists, though, know. We don’t have the data, but we also have no doubt.

Those of us who simply “feel” the country by what’s on TV, what people say on the radio, what fills the OpEd pages of the papers and what’s rampaging through social media, we know—even in a country somewhat relieved to be in at least two ceasefires, something dark has settled over us.

Today is a milestone that, fourteen months ago, no one would have imagined possible. 500 days after October 7th, dozens of Israeli citizens are still in Hamas captivity? Yes, there was some euphoria as the first hostages began to get out a few weeks ago, and yes, every hostage that comes out is a world saved and a family redeemed from hell—but still, we can also feel that the euphoria is ebbing.

Why is that? There are many reasons. Because there’s no denying that all our firepower notwithstanding, it wasn’t us who managed to get them them out, but the new American administration? Because we have little confidence that there will be a Phase II, so we worry about dozens who could be left behind?

Or is it because as the former hostages begin to speak, it’s clear that even those who appeared “OK” as they were paraded across the sickening Hamas stages, are far from OK. So far, in fact, that one wonders who they will be, even year later?

As the country hears about hostages who were kept entirely alone the entire time, who never heard the news, who knew nothing about what had happened to their families, our souls melt. As we hear about elderly hostages, like Keith Siegel, who were fed moldy pita and kicked full force in the ribs for no reason whatsoever, we wonder—what are these people really going to be like five years from now? As we hear of the sick psychological terror that Hamas inflicted on the hostages, it’s hard not to feel entirely overwhelmed by a wave of hate that knows no bounds.

So to mark today’s unbearable milestone, which no words can adequately honor, we’re simply sharing two videos: the one above from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, where Iair Horn, released just days ago, takes to the camera to plead for his brother’s return and can’t get through the words.

And the video below, where women who lost “boyfriends” and thus have little “official” standing (they’re not widows, etc.) reflect on lives that will never be the same, but that somehow, just go on.

On a day like today, on this horrific milestone we’d hoped never to reach, their musings on lives forever altered but that must still move forward are a metaphor for this resilient, remarkable, but also deeply hurting place we call home.

We introduced this series of videos called “Under the Radar” in a post last week.

As we noted there, the entrance to the “Local Testimony” Exhibit at Tel Aviv’s Land of Israel Museum has a huge QR code on the wall, inviting the visitor to watch a series of very brief documentary videos made about all the different groups listed above.

There are many brief documentaries, unfortunately not yet available in English, and they deserve as wide an audience as they can get.

On this 500 day milestone, a reminder of the depths of pain this country is facing, far from the headlines, far from the statistics, but etched so deeply in the soul that the pain will be here for as long as any of us are around.

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