The freed hostages spent four months in an apartment in Rafah without seeing sunlight and poorly fed

The families of Argentine origin of the hostages captured by Hamas on October 7 celebrated this Monday the release of two of the nine kidnapped from this community in Gaza. “On our WhatsApp there have been congratulations and joy,” says Itzik Horn by phone. However, he immediately adds: “Let's hope that soon it will be our turn all to be together again.” He refers to two of his children, who are still hostages in the Strip, where more than 28,000 Palestinians have died due to Israeli attacks.

Those released this Monday, Fernando Simón Marman, 60, and Norberto Luis Har, 70, told their relatives that they did not see sunlight for 129 days, that they were not beaten and that they spent days of hunger, according to the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. Basically fed on pita bread and white cheese, the two have returned with a noticeable weight loss and very weak, according to the same media, despite the fact that their captivity has taken place in less harsh conditions than those of other kidnapped people. Marman and Har have stayed in the apartment of a family – for whom they sometimes cooked – on the second floor of a housing block in Rafah, in the south of the Strip. That building is located just a dozen kilometers from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, where they were captured during the Hamas attack on October 7. Nothing to do with the confinement of other hostages, spent underground in the network of tunnels drilled by Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups.

Fernando Marman, known as Elder brother, is a handyman who makes a living restoring furniture in a shop in the town of Ramat Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv, sources from the forum of families of hostages and missing persons tell about him. He is someone who “loves life and knows how to enjoy the little things.” “He loves traveling, good wine, football and music,” he adds. In fact, football has saved some of the conversations that the two freed hostages have had during these four long months with the Palestinians once they found out that they were Argentine.

Luis Har, who worked as an accountant until his retirement a few months ago, is today a “grandfather devoted to his grandchildren” who emigrated to Israel in 1971 and resides in the Urim kibbutz, about 15 kilometers east of Gaza. “He is known for his culinary skills and his love for folk dance,” they describe him in the family forum. For 22 years, Har has had a relationship with Clara Marman, Fernando's sister, who was also kidnapped until her release during the exchanges for Palestinian prisoners that took place during the ceasefire at the end of November.

“Mixed feelings”

But the return home of the two hostages does not make us forget the families who still have seven other citizens with dual Argentine-Israeli nationality in the Palestinian enclave. “The feelings are mixed. On the one hand, joy because anyone who can get out of that hell is welcome. On the other hand, one fears what the reactions may be, because you imagine that, after something like this, they may be treated worse. We cannot know, because they are not in the hands of normal people,” explains Itzik Horn. “If you tell me that [Fernando y Luis] They are the last two, but look at all those who remain and it is not known who is alive and who is dead,” he adds in reference to the 134 who are still inside Gaza, of which 31, according to the authorities, are dead.

Among that group are his sons Yair, 45, and Eitam, 37, kidnapped in Kibbutz Nir Oz. It was thanks to the testimonies of hostages from that community released in November in exchange for Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons that Horn knew they were alive. “They saw that the boys were fine, that they were not hurt,” says the father. It is “the only news, although it is information from almost two months ago,” he emphasizes.

Despite the failure of other rescue operations by the Israeli army, Horn remains calm and hopeful after the two liberations. “It has been a very risky operation. That it could have ended one way or the other, something planned a long time ago…” he maintains. He considers it “practically a miracle” that the two hostages were able to escape without injuries after a complicated operation, according to Israeli military sources. The members of the special forces entered the house to rescue them and used their bodies as parapets so that they would not be injured in the midst of the intense exchanges of gunfire.

“We thank the soldiers who demonstrated strength and bravery to achieve the release of the two hostages and we hope that everyone returns to their homes safely and quickly,” the forum that brings together the families said in a statement. “Time is running out for the hostages held captive by Hamas. Their lives are at risk with every passing moment. “The Israeli Government must exhaust all options on the table to free them,” the text adds.

On October 7, Hamas carried out the largest attack that Israel has suffered in its 75-year history as a State. It was the trigger for the current conflict. That day, the Islamists murdered around 1,200 people and kidnapped around 240. Over a hundred were freed during the ceasefire week in November. These days the parties are trying to agree on a new pause in the war that will allow those who remain to be exchanged, as then, for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Rafah, where Fernando Simón Marman and Norberto Luis Har have been held hostage, is the next objective that the authorities and the Israeli army have set in their attempt to put an end to Hamas. There, in the extreme south of Gaza and bordering Egypt, more than a million Palestinians are crowded in inhuman conditions and with hardly any food or water.

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