The families of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages have welcomed their loved ones home, more than two years after they were kidnapped by Hamas and held in captivity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Liz Hirsh Naftali knows how the hostages\u2019 families are feeling. Her great-niece Abigail Edan, whose parents were killed by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, was kidnapped as a 3-year-old, along with about 240 other Israelis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The families of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages have welcomed their loved ones home, more than two years after they were kidnapped by Hamas and held in captivity
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Liz Hirsh Naftali, whose great-niece was held in captivity for 51 days after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, spoke with NY1 about the ceasefire agreement
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The bodies of 28 deceased Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza are also expected to be handed over by Hamas as part of the ceasefire agreement with Israel<\/p>\n
After 51 days in captivity, Abigail was released on the third day of a hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the road forward for all of these families is really difficult. But it is one that, when somebody comes home, you can begin to heal. And I know that until Abigail came back, we could not begin to heal,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen them today coming out, and we\u2019ve seen them in their loved ones\u2019 arms and it is, I just burst into tears each time,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bodies of 28 deceased Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza are also expected to be handed over by Hamas as part of the ceasefire agreement with Israel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing back the hostages. It is this open wound, and a very terrible wound, and having them back, even the remains of those who were killed, having the bodies back, brings a sense of closure,\u201d said Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Goldstein has met with a number of hostage families over the last few years, including Rachel Goldman-Polin \u2014 the mother of Hersh, who was killed in captivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is very, very personal, and very special \u2014 family members who we know, you know, spouses, husbands, who are still there, or parents waiting back for their children,\u201d Goldstein said.<\/p>\n
Naftali, who has written a book about her great-niece\u2019s experience, says the road ahead for the hostages returning home will be a long one. But she says Abigail, who is now 5, has shown her that there is hope.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAbigail has been able to move forward. The trauma and the tragedy of October 7th will always live within her and her siblings and all of us,\u201d she said. \u201cBut she\u2019s been able to go to school and start what we want for all of our children, which is just to go to school and have a life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The families of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages have welcomed their loved ones home, more than two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25,9,24,11,10,12,26,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-46","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-nia-clark","15":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}