President Donald Trump defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to order what the prime minister called “forceful” strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza on Tuesday in response to ceasefire violations by the terror group, dismissing concerns that the actions could upend the deal.

“They killed an Israeli soldier, so the Israelis hit back and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday evening. “Hamas is a small thing, but they kill people. They grew up killing people, and I guess they don’t stop. Nobody knows what happened to the Israeli soldier, but they say it was sniper-fire and it was retribution for that. I think they have a right to do that.”

“Nothing’s going to jeopardize that [the ceasefire],” he continued. “Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave. They’re on the rough side, but they said they would be good, and if they’re good, they’re going to be happy. If they’re not good, they’re going to be terminated. Their lives will be terminated, and they understand that.” 

The Associated Press reported at least 80 killed in the strikes, including dozens of children. The Israeli army said it had hit dozens of terror targets and struck over 30 terrorists holding command positions within terrorist organizations operating in Gaza.

Initial reaction to Netanyahu’s decision to strike in Gaza fell largely along party lines, with Israel’s Republican allies in the Senate defending the Jewish state’s actions as self-defense while Democrats expressed concerns that the ceasefire in Gaza could be in jeopardy. 

“You’re going to see a lot of this,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Jewish Insider of the renewed skirmishes in Gaza. “I mean, the Hamas soldiers are not terribly civilized, and the fact that there’s a ceasefire is of no moment to many of them. You’re periodically going to see them continue to shoot at the Israeli soldiers, and when they do, the Israeli soldiers are going to shoot back and kill them.”

“Eventually the really stupid Hamas members will stop doing it, because they’ll be dead,” the Louisiana senator continued. “But this is gonna happen. I mean, you’re not talking about sane people.”

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) suggested “we ought to expect” the Israelis to still conduct operations in Gaza given Hamas’ actions targeting IDF troops and Palestinian civilians since the ceasefire went into effect. 

“Hamas is a terrorist organization. They are going to continue to commit acts of violence, and Israel is going to need to respond,” Ricketts told JI. “That’s why it’s imperative that the Gulf states work together to get an international police force to be able to keep peace in Gaza while we go through this transition.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said he felt it was “entirely appropriate” that Israel struck Hamas targets in order to protect Israeli forces.

“Because Hamas is attacking the IDF, that is entirely appropriate for Israel to defend itself — today, yesterday, tomorrow. If Hamas is attacking them, violating, obviously, the ceasefire and attacking IDF soldiers, Israel has been very clear: If you shoot us, we’re going to actually stop you,” Lankford told JI. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who offered his support for further Israeli confrontation with Hamas earlier this week, wrote on X on Tuesday afternoon that he was in “total support” of “the recent military action by Israel against Hamas.”

“Without Hamas being disarmed and removed from power permanently, there will be no pathway to stability and peace in the Middle East. Hamas is killing their opposition and consolidating their power,” Graham wrote. “If Israel believes it is necessary to reengage Hamas militarily, so be it. They have my complete backing.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) concurred with his GOP colleagues, telling JI, “If Hamas is going to strike Israel, they [Israel] don’t have a choice. They have to strike back. It’s too bad, but they don’t have a choice.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) surmised that Israel launched the strikes because Hamas was not honoring their side of the ceasefire deal by refusing to disarm. 

“I think the reasoning for it was: Hamas is supposed to be planning on disarming, but I suspect that there’s probably some portions of Hamas that don’t want to disarm, and they’re probably regrouping,” Rounds told JI. “If [Netanyahu] can take out some more of those terrorists, I think he probably decided he would do it now as opposed to later.”

“We want that ceasefire to be successful, but it means Hamas has got to give up their weapons,” he added.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) wrote on X on Tuesday that, “Hamas is in direct violation of the ceasefire, including deceptively & cruelly obstructing the return of deceased hostages to their families. The @IDF’s actions are a result of Hamas’ repeated violations & their targeting of Israeli troops.”

The North Carolina senator declined to elaborate when asked by JI at the Capitol about the developments, noting that he wanted to hold off on commenting further until he had been fully briefed on the situation. 

Some Senate Democrats who have been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on the Jewish state said they hoped the latest developments would not completely upend the ceasefire deal. 

“It is very troubling,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said of Netanyahu launching the strikes. “I give President Trump a lot of credit for really working hard to get him [Netanyahu] to accept the deal. He wouldn’t have accepted it before.”

Kaine questioned if Netanyahu was aiming to derail the ceasefire, and noted that such a development would upend current efforts by the U.S. to bring more Gulf states into the Abraham Accords. 

“My question is: Is he trying to undo the deal?” the Virginia senator asked of Netanyahu. “If he’s trying to undo the deal, then he’s got another problem, which is [that] they [the U.S.] want more nations in the Abraham Accords, and those nations have said we’re not coming in unless there is a path forward to Palestinian autonomy.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told JI that he was waiting to be briefed before speaking publicly, but said it would be “unfortunate if we wound up in a situation where this unravels.”

Middle East experts with whom JI spoke described Israel’s strikes against Hamas as necessary for its security, and dismissed concerns that Israel was acting without U.S. involvement or trying to disrupt the deal, while others expressed concern regarding Washington’s ability to constrain the Israelis. 

“Israel has shown considerable patience and restraint in the face of multiple Hamas violations of its ceasefire obligations, but attacks on its personnel are something no government can accept,” Rob Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JI. “Hamas’ violations are real and serious, deserving of an appropriate response.”

Mona Yacoubian, director and senior advisor of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, remained skeptical over Israel’s decision to strike. She said the operation could reflect a developing pattern where Israel takes military action with or without U.S. cooperation, and argued that Washington should be willing to adjust accordingly to “enforce” and monitor the ceasefire arrangement.

“Although we are still very much in the ‘fog of war,’ it does not appear that the United States approved the strike or necessarily even agrees with Israel’s interpretations that Hamas violated the ceasefire,” Yacoubian told JI. “We are likely seeing the beginnings of a ‘new normal’ where Israel strikes as it sees necessary. The key question is whether or not the United States will acquiesce to that.”

Gaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, predicted that the breakout of strikes was an isolated episode that would be “contained.” 

“The current escalation is concerning but not surprising. Ceasefires take a while to solidify and stabilize, whether because of accidents or because the sides testing the limits of the ceasefire,” al-Omari said. “The challenge facing the U.S. now is how to balance supporting Israel’s right to respond to Hamas’ violations while at the same time ensuring that this round of escalation does not spin out of control.”

The return of the final, living hostages to Israel last week has reopened discussion of putting the Palestinian perpetrators of the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities in Israel on trial.

Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin threw his support behind legislation to allow for the formation of a special tribunal to prosecute Hamas terrorists who are part of the Nukhba, the terrorist group’s special forces unit, on charges of genocide, which carries the death penalty.

The bill is meant to “ensure that the legal process will be run efficiently and to ensure that justice will be done and seen,” Levin said in a joint statement with the bill’s sponsors, Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee Chairman Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionist Party and Yisrael Beytenu lawmaker Yuli Malinovsky. The group plans to bring the legislation to a first vote as soon as possible and usher it through the process “at the greatest speed, with a shared aim to bring the Nukhba terrorists to justice soon.”

Levin, Rothman and Malinovsky said that the office of the Israeli state attorney, the country’s chief prosecutor, has drafted indictments against Nukhba terrorists.

They noted that during the two years since the Hamas attacks on southern Israel, the State Attorney’s Office, police and Shin Bet have interrogated the Nukhba terrorists and collected evidence “of an unprecedented scope,” including thousands of hours of video of the atrocities and of testimony. 

During that time, the Law, Constitution and Justice Committee held a series of meetings to examine possible ways to put the Nukhba terrorists on trial and ensure they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

“We met with the Justice Ministry once every few months,” Rothman told Jewish Insider. “Levin finally supports [the bill]. Every obstacle was standing in our way, and [Levin] didn’t make an effort to remove them. Now, there’s nothing preventing it from moving forward.”

The move toward putting Oct. 7 perpetrators on trial comes soon after the return of the living hostages, as well as weeks after a heated debate in the Knesset over instituting the death penalty for terrorists. The legislation’s explanatory portion says it is meant to “nip terrorism in the bud and create a heavy deterrent.” 

The death penalty has only been carried out once in Israel’s history — following the conviction of senior Nazi official Adolf Eichmann for crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against humanity.

The bill, which applies to terrorists broadly, not only those who participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, was proposed by members of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party and brought before the Knesset National Security Committee, chaired by Tzvika Foghel, also of Otzma. The Prime Minister’s Office asked Ben-Gvir to postpone the vote. 

Gal Hirsch, the coordinator for the hostages, said in the committee meeting that Ben-Gvir’s effort was potentially harmful to the ongoing discussions to secure the release of the remaining hostages. Representatives from hostage families have also pleaded with the lawmakers to stop the proceedings, concerned that the moves could endanger their loved ones.

On Monday, Ben-Gvir made an ultimatum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that either the death penalty bill passes a first Knesset vote in the next three weeks, or his party will no longer vote with the coalition. 

“When terrorists remain alive, the terrorists outside are motivated to carry out kidnappings in order to free their Nazi brothers in future deals,” Ben-Gvir said. “If they murder a Jew, they do not stay alive.”

Rothman argued that his bill is significantly different from Ben-Gvir’s, and pointed out that he held a committee meeting the same week as the one that courted controversy, and neither Netanyahu nor Hirsch asked him to hold off.

“It’s a question of whether you want real results. [Otzma lawmakers] don’t understand what they’re dealing with. The law they want to pass [is so broad], I think it would end up giving a Jewish Israeli the death penalty first,” he remarked.

While Rothman said that having all of the living hostages home will help the Oct. 7 trials to move forward, when he asked senior defense figures over the last two years whether there was a risk to the hostages’ lives from his actions, “they said no. They said when there’s a conviction or maybe even an indictment, possibly, but just building the framework is not a risk.”

As such, Rothman said that though it may seem like a long time has passed, “the time hasn’t been a waste. A lot of material was collected and we oversaw the legislative and political decisions that needed to be made.”

Rothman and Malinovsky’s bill would establish a special tribunal for those who participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, with the proceedings made public. The legislation sets different rules for presenting evidence to protect the privacy of victims and their families, and to streamline the process of prosecuting large numbers of defendants. It also allows for non-Israeli judges to be appointed. In addition, it would establish a committee of representatives of Israel’s justice minister, defense minister and foreign minister to determine government policy as to whether to prosecute the Nukhba terrorists on genocide charges, which carry the death penalty, taking national security into consideration.

In a Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee meeting on Wednesday, the first since Levin publicly supported the bill, Malinovsky said that she and Rothman “understand that it was difficult to gather evidence … and I know that law enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office overturned every stone to find evidence. [Regular] criminal justice proceedings do not have a response for the events of Oct. 7, therefore MK Rothman and I wrote this bill to regulate the jailing and prosecution of the terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre.” 

Malinovsky said that there is difficulty tying specific terrorists to specific murders, and genocide is a collective crime, by which they can be charged as a group. In cases in which there is no evidence tying a terrorist to genocide, they can be tried in a military court as illegal fighters who committed acts of terror against Israel, a crime that carries a life sentence. 

Much of the bill is focused on clear criteria for genocide charges.

“At first, the Justice Ministry said that genocide charges won’t work,” Rothman recalled earlier this week, “but today, I think they understand that they need to go there.”

The special tribunal is meant to prevent the Oct. 7 trials from getting caught up in the Israeli justice system’s significant backlog.

“It’s a lot of heavy cases that will block up the whole justice system” if the trials are in regular courts, Rothman explained. 

In addition, he said, “I don’t want a situation where a judge is with the Nukhba in the morning and in the afternoon is dealing with an Israel who stole a car. We could end up lowering the standards of defendants’ rights in all of Israel. When we authorized preventing meetings [of terrorists] with lawyers, [judges] used it for all kinds of other cases, just because they can. We’re not going to allow that.”

Rothman said that the question of appointing foreign judges to the tribunal remains open, because it may be too complex. However, he said, “bringing a major jurist from the U.S. or somewhere else can give the trials an international imprimatur.”

Malinovsky said at the committee meeting that the Oct. 7 attacks “are like nothing else in the world, and I invite anyone who has knowledge to speak. We need creative solutions, outside of the box, and therefore we need a change of attitude, especially in the Justice Ministry.” 

Two clashing narratives have emerged about Israel’s strike on a meeting of senior Hamas terrorists in Doha, Qatar, in September, following the release of a preview of an interview with U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on CBS’ “60 Minutes” program that aired on Sunday evening.

Both narratives posit that the strike hastened the arrival of President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to free the hostages and end the war. Figures close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the attack pushed an anxious Qatar, Hamas’ patron and host of its senior officials, to do more to get the terrorist organization across the finish line. 

Trump’s negotiators, however, presented a scenario in which the president, unhappy about the strike, pressured Israel to end the war.  

Of the Israeli strike on Doha, Witkoff said that he and Kushner, who in recent months has also played a key role in the administration’s Middle East efforts, “felt a little bit betrayed.”

Kushner added, “I think [Trump] felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control in what they were doing, and it was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things he thought were not in their long-term interest.”

Witkoff said that Qatar, which served as a key mediator between Hamas and Israel for much of the negotiations, said that, following the strike, “we had lost the confidence of the Qataris, so Hamas went underground. It was very difficult to get to them … and it became very, very evident as to how important, how critical [Qatar’s] role was.” 

Jerusalem, however, had a different version of the events, as told by Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s closest confidante, in an Israel Hayom column by journalist Amit Segal.

Israelis involved in the negotiations viewed Qatar as a “spoiler,” such as when they talked Hamas out of accepting a deal proposed by Egypt earlier in the year, according to Segal. 

Dermer, Segal wrote, “links the strike to the agreement … The Qataris, it turns out, were convinced that by agreeing to host the negotiations, they had obtained immunity from Israeli strikes on their soil. From their perspective, the strike was a blatant, offensive breach of the commitment. … The Americans’ genius was to convert that negative energy into fuel to propel negotiations to their goal. ‘You want Israel to stop? Then let’s end the war.'”

Netanyahu’s office and the White House closely coordinated throughout subsequent talks to end the war, Segal reported. Then came an agreement backed by several Arab states calling for Hamas to disarm and without the immediate involvement of the Palestinian Authority.

Reactions in Israel to the “60 minutes” preview fell on predictable lines. Netanyahu’s critics said that the U.S. officials’ comments demonstrated that the prime minister did not want to enter the agreement, but instead was pushed into it by Trump.

Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid argued that Witkoff and Kushner’s comments made clear that “after the failed attack on Doha, Trump thought that Netanyahu lost control and forced an agreement on Netanyahu that he didn’t want. … An American administration has never described an Israeli government like this.” 

Ha’aretz journalist Amir Tibon, who lived in one of the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, posted on X: “Witkoff and Kushner say in their own voices: Trump understood that Netanyahu was not on the right track and acted aggressively against him to reach a ceasefire and free the hostages.”

Nava Rozolyo, a prominent figure in the protests against Netanyahu years before the Gaza war began, wrote: “Thank you … for forcing Hamas and Netanyahu to reach an agreement on the return of all hostages and ending the war. Thank you for saving us from our own government and for saving lives.” 

On the Israeli right, many took issue with Witkoff and Kushner’s retelling of events.

Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs President Dan Diker posted on X that “the Israelis ‘getting out of control’ is what helped bring the hostage deal to the table, scaring the Qataris out of their minds.”  

Some highlighted Kushner and Witkoff’s business dealings in Qatar. Kushner’s investment company, Affinity Partners, manages billions of dollars in investments from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Witkoff’s son sought Qatari investments in commercial real estate projects earlier this year, and in 2023, Qatar bought the Park Lane Hotel in Manhattan from Witkoff and his partners. 

Yishai Fleisher, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron and an informal advisor to Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who opposes the ceasefire deal, posted on X in response to the video: “Two American Jews, with no blood on the line in Israel (their wife and kids don’t drive on the roads with Jihadis), but lots of money on the line and business with Qatar, wag their finger at the Jewish State as they cut an awful deal that is certain to bring war.”

Other moments in the interview courted further controversy in Israel, such as when Witkoff described an Israeli cabinet meeting that he attended, in which Ben-Gvir talked about “all the death and all the carnage” from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and was “emotional.” In response, Witkoff described his son Andrew’s death from an overdose and told the Israeli cabinet minister to “let it go, you just can’t play the victim all the time.” 

Witkoff also brought up his son’s death in the interview in relation to his meeting with Hamas lead negotiator Khalil al-Haya, whose son was killed in the Doha strike.

“We expressed our condolences to him for the loss of his son, and I told him that I had lost my son and we are both members of a really bad club, parents who had buried children,” he said. 

Kushner said of Witkoff and the senior Hamas terrorist: “When Steve and him talked about their sons, it turned from a negotiation with a terrorist group to seeing two human beings kind of showing a vulnerability with each other.”

Kushner also said that he sought to relay a message to Israel’s leadership that “now that the war is over, if you want to integrate Israel with the broader Middle East, you have to find a way to help the Palestinian people thrive and do better.”

“How are you doing with that message?” Leslie Stahl asked.

Kushner smiled and replied: “We’re just getting started.”

This report was updated on Oct. 20, 2025, after the CBS “60 Minutes” interview aired in full.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sharply denounced the anti-Israel movement on Tuesday, describing it as making common cause with terrorists and putting “a bounty on the heads of peace-loving Jewish Americans.”

Johnson gathered on the steps of the Capitol with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), dozens of members of Congress, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, hostage family members including Ronen Neutra and staff from the Israeli Embassy and AJC for a vigil honoring Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, the Israeli Embassy employees killed by an anti-Israel activist outside an AJC event at the Capital Jewish Museum last month.

“It’s a dangerous time to be a Jewish American,” Johnson said, noting that the House had taken extra precautions to keep the event under wraps for security reasons. Visible and covert security surrounded the gathering.

“The monster who murdered [Lischinsky and Milgrim] was not motivated by peace, [but] something very different. He went to a Jewish museum to hunt down Jewish people, and we want to be crystal clear tonight: This is targeted antisemitic terrorism,” Johnson said. “There are no shades of gray. There is no other way to describe it, as we’ve seen in the weeks since this violence is definitely not isolated.”

He said that the D.C. shooter and the individual who attacked a march for the hostages in Gaza in Boulder, Colo., were “united in their sick hatred of the Jewish people.” He highlighted that both shouted “Free Palestine” during their attacks, a slogan he noted has proliferated at protests on college campuses and in American cities.

“‘Free Palestine’ is the chant of a violent movement that has found common cause with Hamas,” Johnson said. “It’s a movement that has lost hold of the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil, between light and darkness … They proclaim that violence is righteous, that rape is justice and that murder is liberation. They have created a culture of lies that puts a bounty on the heads of peace-loving Jewish Americans.”

Jeffries described the shooting as domestic terrorism and said Lischinsky and Milgrim were “victims of the same deadly antisemitism that fueled the attacks in Boulder, the attack at Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home in Pennsylvania, at synagogues, yeshivas, businesses and communities all across America.”

“Antisemitism has been a painful reality of Jewish life throughout the world for thousands of years, but now too many of our Jewish brothers and sisters here in America fear for their safety,” Jeffries said. “In this country, antisemitism has been metastasizing like a malignant tumor, and we must all work together to eradicate this cancer.”

Referencing the week’s Torah portion, when God instructed Moses to appoint elders to help him lead the Jewish people through the desert after leaving Mount Sinai, Jeffries said that lawmakers from both parties need to step up to help the Jewish community fight antisemitism.

“We will not let you shoulder this burden alone,” Jeffries said. “That’s a moral necessity here in the United States of America.”

Leiter said that “the intifada has been globalized, and like [George] Orwell’s ‘1984,’ ‘Free, free Palestine’ means ‘Death, death Israel,’ and it is now incumbent upon all of us to confront it,” Leiter said. “Today we are challenged to act, to honor the fallen, not just with words, but with a renewed commitment to fighting the scourge of hate, fighting the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel.”

AJC’s Deutch said that “antisemitism is antisemitism, period. There should be no more debate about which kind of antisemitism is more dangerous, or which we need to be more afraid of.”

“It is clear every antisemitism is and has been deadly, from the extreme left to the extreme right,” Deutch said. “Both must be condemned by everyone, no excuses, because if you can only see antisemitism when it is convenient then you’re not seeing it at all.”

He described the demonization of Israel and trends of blaming it for “every injustice in the world” as the “current socially acceptable form of antisemitism,” which has “sanitized” the hatred.

“There is a straight line from the demonization of Israel, the dangerous lies that people peddle about the one Jewish state to the antisemitic violence that impacts real people,” Deutch said. “When calls to globalize the intifada and chants [of] ‘from the river to the sea’ are screamed at protests, these must be called out for what they are. They are not slogans for a social justice movement. They are incitement to violence. Everyone must call that out forcefully and with clarity.”

Deutch said he appreciates Congress’ work to improve Jewish communal security, but argued that it is not normal nor acceptable for any religious group to need armed guards and security checkpoints to gather and practice their faith.

Lischinsky and Milgrim’s supervisors at the embassy shared statements from their families, highlighting their lives, the positive impacts they had on their communities and their passion for their work at the Israeli Embassy.

When Israelis held hostage by terrorists in Gaza are released, there is a flurry of attention. Members of the media descend on the hospitals to which the newly freed hostages are sent. Dozens of photos of the former hostages and their families are disseminated from the hospitals. Siblings and other relatives give interviews about the returnees’ medical conditions and what they said about their treatment in Gaza. 

Soon after, however, the public no longer hears much from most of them. To be sure, some gave high-profile interviews, while others found themselves on red carpets. Some were cheered by whole soccer arenas. The divorce of one former hostage from her husband has turned into gossip fodder in Israel. But for the most part, their day-to-day struggles are not on the public’s radar, even as the former hostages’ recoveries from their physical and mental injuries continues.

Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, in central Israel, has treated and continues to treat hostages released in the ceasefire that took place earlier this year: female soldiers Naama Levy, Karina Ariyev, Agam Berger, Liri Albag and Daniella Gilboa, as well as Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Eliya Cohen and Omer Shemtov.

Dr. Michael Bahar, director of the Rehabilitation Unit at Beilinson, who has been overseeing their recovery, told Jewish Insider in the hospital this week that his department “built rehabilitation programs based on each patient’s specific needs. It’s a multidisciplinary process, working with physical therapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, nurses and psychologists. For the rehabilitation of the female soldiers, “we work with the IDF,” he added.

“It’s been three months, and for some it continues, and we’re always thinking about the next stage,” Bahar said. “Every day of treatment has a schedule, matching each patient’s needs — physical, cognitive and beyond.”

The returnees come to the hospital multiple times a week for treatments that range from more traditional medical appointments to working with dieticians to ensure they are eating properly after over 500 days of malnutrition to exercises that strengthen injured limbs and improve aerobic activity. 

Some of the treatments are in groups and include enjoyable but rehabilitative activities, such as cooking and dance classes. The returned hostages exercise using virtual reality headsets, and a ping-pong table was brought in at the request of one of the hostages, who then played with his family.

“They are accompanied by their psychologist, who plays a central role, because they can say when it’s too early to do something or if it’s the right time … They are starting to deal with participation in active lives in society, in school, with family,” Bahar said. The former hostages have had to consider whether the time is right to start working or studying, what kind of social activities they feel comfortable doing, whether they can drive and more.

The Rehabilitation Unit at Beilinson also treats many wounded soldiers, and Bahar said they and the former hostages have found it meaningful to undergo joint treatment and exercises together, including in the department’s pool.

“The soldiers felt that they were fighting to free the hostages, so we connected between them,” Bahar said. “One evening the [female soldier hostages] went to visit the wounded soldiers in the department. It was an indescribable moment. They couldn’t speak, they were so excited … It was very significant, very powerful for the soldiers and the returnees.”

Some of the hostages are still undergoing complex medical procedures, which they were given the option to delay. Freed hostage Romi Gonen, who was treated at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, shared this week that she is undergoing a second surgery on her hand.

Dr. Noa Eliakim-Raz, head of the Returnees Ward and one of Beilinson’s six internal medicine departments, said that the staff has made sure to treat the returnees as “free people with the right to choose” after a year and a half in which their freedom was violently taken from them.

“Medically, we thought it was good to postpone some procedures and to give them the right to decide. If they say they want to postpone in order to go abroad, we can let them prioritize and decide for themselves. It’s clear to them that we are here for them, whenever they need us,” she said.

Beilinson set up the Returnees Ward on a floor of the Schneider Children’s Medical Center, which is in the same complex as the larger hospital. The entrance is through a corridor decorated with a cartoon dinosaur mural, with glass sliding doors that few hospital employees are able to access. They open up to signs that say “Now you’re home,” “We’ve waited for this moment,” and feature psalms thanking God for their return.

The department was set up after the November 2023 ceasefire, in which 105 hostages — mostly women and children — were released. Beilinson treated seven adult returnees — six mothers and a grandmother — while their children released from captivity were cared for at Schneider, all in the same department.

“Once that ended, we realized that everyone else who would come back would be adults and we started to prepare to receive them,” Eliakim-Raz said. “We hoped we would not have much time, but we had a lot of time to prepare.”

The department has room for up to 12 hostages, though the most it has treated simultaneously is nine. Two hospital rooms were designated for each returnee, one for the former hostage and another for family to sleep next door. Lounges were set up for the returnees to spend time together and to receive guests, including one with a sweeping view of the hospital campus, including the helipad on which the freed hostages arrived. A closet was filled with supplies the families may have forgotten to bring them: sweatsuits and pajamas, fluffy towels, slippers and flip-flops, stuffed animals, markers and paper — and lice removal shampoo.

Over time, Eliakim-Raz and her team compiled a medical protocol of hundreds of pages to prepare for the hostages’ return, listening to the testimony of those who already returned and poring over medical papers about other hostage situations, like in the Yom Kippur War, and Holocaust survivors. They also performed simulations of handling a group of freed hostages.

“So much changed, because being a hostage for 50 days is not like being there for over a year,” she said. “The preparation was complex. Soldiers male and female have different needs, there are other areas of care for young women, and much older adults have totally different problems. We prepared for every population and every scenario we could think of.” 

“Every discipline involved needed to know what to prepare for, what it means psychologically and physically. The dieticians had to think about what they would encounter in someone who spent 550 days underground … What effect does a lack of stimuli have on younger and older people,” Eliakim-Raz said. 

Dr. Michal Steinman, director of nursing at Beilinson, said that they also considered what being kept underground for long periods of time would mean, and whether the returnees would need dimmer lights or special glasses. They also thought they may need to help the returnees adapt to a more normal sleep schedule, though she found that “each one managed to keep track of time in their way. It was an amazing survival instinct, but it had psychological and bodily consequences.”

Steinman said she is “used to working on evidence-based medicine, but here we had to work based on clues. We examined the stories we heard and read and had to think of different variations to prepare. It was detective work.”

“We were well-prepared, but the real moment was indescribable,” Steinman said of the hostages’ arrival.

Each time hostages landed on the helipad in Beilinson, Eliakim-Raz said she “tried to give them a feeling of a home, more than a hospital. It’s a sort of warm capsule between captivity and home … It gives a lot of security. They are protected here. We didn’t let media in, and only people they wanted to see could be here. It was very closely managed.” 

Steinman said the hospital’s treatment also extended to the hostages’ relatives, who in some cases had neglected their own health and underwent examinations by the doctors at Beilinson. Steinman and a mental health professional held nightly group meetings with the parents of the hostages when they were staying in the hospital, to answer questions about their children’s health.

“The public is excited about the hugs and kisses” when the hostages are reunited with their families, Eliakim-Raz said, “but the real difficult stage is at the end of the process when they have to go home.”

The continued outpatient rehabilitation program gives the returnees “continuity,” Bahar said. “They went back home but are still in this very safe environment.” 

The medical literature about Holocaust survivors and Yom Kippur War prisoners of war who returned to Israel shows that those who are back from Gaza are likely to have long-term risks to their health.

“We see [in the literature] PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], depression and dangerous behaviors,” Eliakim-Raz said. “The body remembers and we don’t understand how, but it is in a more inflamed state than their peers. That can impact metabolic symptoms and cause a higher rate of strokes … I hope that they will have nothing and be healthy and happy, but the literature says that chances are that is not what’s going to happen.”

“If we don’t continue to reach out [to the hostages] now, maybe no one will make that connection in the future. They deserve that someone will examine them. We want to continue — they deserve that … We are going to actively invite them to checkup days and bring them in as a group to try to catch things early,” she said.

Like many Israelis, Steinman continues to try to follow what her patients are up to through the media. 

“When I see them on TV, I’m so excited,” she said. “The group we met are inspirational. They went through a very difficult captivity and returned with a strong enough foundation to be rehabilitated and build a quality life. The scars will remain, but they all have great mental strength.” 

That being said, the hostages who stayed at Beilinson all expressed forms of survivors’ guilt.

“They don’t feel ready to be fully rehabilitated until their friends get out” of Gaza, Eliakim-Raz said.

Meanwhile, the team at Beilinson is preparing in case they are entrusted with the care of some of the 20 remaining living hostages when they are released. Nurses check the medications in the department every week to make sure they aren’t expired, and the clothing to see that it fits the season.

Steinman said that recent hostage talks and the hope that the remaining hostages will be freed “takes me back to the long time we waited before … We’re back in the days of anticipation, and I don’t know when it will happen. For the 500 days of preparation before [the ceasefire that began in January], it was an emotional time. Sometimes we despaired.”

Steinman and Eliakim-Raz said that they put off travel plans because they don’t want to miss the hostages coming home: “This is where I need to be,” Steinman said.

“Everyone is waiting to see them return — though you can’t compare it to the families. For us, as a medical team, there is anticipation … We knew what to do and we did it well, and we want to do it again,” she added.