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Israeli hostages in Gaza: Tamar Gutman, the firecracker
The family of Adva Gutman Tirosh (now 38) moved to the idyllic rural moshav (cooperative farmers’ village) of Kfar Bin Nun when Adva was three years old. A drive along the quiet, lush, green streets, dotted with beautifully designed houses, each home to an integral component of this warm community, reveals that it is the perfect environment in which to raise a family.
Life was simple for the two Gutman daughters, Adva and her sister Ella (now 35), who would run and play throughout the close-knit community, and were thrilled when their baby sister Tamar burst into their lives like a firecracker. With an age gap of 8 and 11 years between them and Tamar, Adva and Ella felt that Tamar (27) was really their baby.
“My sister and I would always play with her, dress her up, do her hair, dance with her,” Adva recalled, reminiscing together with her sisters and parents in their pastoral home in Kfar Bin Nun, “We would take her and [our youngest sister] Netta out in the rain in the winter, wearing our bathing suits and rain boots, and jumping in the mud. This was our childhood growing up on the moshav.”
This was the childhood that any mother would want for her children, and Yaira Gutman could not have imagined a more perfect place to raise her four daughters.Today, the atmosphere of the Gutman family’s home has taken a dramatic turn, and the personal safety that the Gutmans had so fondly remembered from their childhood has dissipated.
Tamar’s face shines from posters displayed around the moshav, playfully sticking out her tongue through her bright smile, representative of her dominant, fun-loving personality, a bleak reminder of the darkness that has emerged in the month since her disappearance from the Supernova festival on October 7.
“Like any family, we laugh, argue, joke, and fight, but Tamar is two levels above us,” Yaira said, adding that sometimes when Tamar would become a handful, she would take her [daughter] over to a neighbor, who would help her out for the afternoon.
“She grew up so happy and content, and even as the older girls grew up, got married, and moved out, Tamar would always be the one to keep us together.”
Maybe sometimes a little too much, as Adva added she was a bit of a nudnik [pest].
“Yeah, she would call every two days because she had stomach pains.” Adva and her mother had even joked that if someone kidnapped her on the side of the road, they’d only last half an hour before returning her to her parents and paying them a ransom.
Despite her outward smile and playful attitude, Tamar has suffered for years from debilitating Crohn’s disease, often calling her mother or sisters to come pick her up from work or from friends’ when her stomach pains became too much to bear.
“It was important for her to be out, travel, and see friends, but every night she needed to come home,” Adva explained, cracking a smile, even though it often fell to her to drive across the country to pick up her beloved sister.
“Once we understood that it was truly difficult for her, we would go to pick her up. It wasn’t because we would coddle her, it was the opposite. Tamar would make the effort and try to get out [of the house], and instead of her simply not leaving, we would go to get her.”
In recent years, Tamar struggled to overcome these challenges, even braving an overnight camping trip once or twice a year with her friends. She is the only one of her sisters to have moved out of the moshav, living on her own in a neighboring community, surrounded by several close childhood friends.
While she has spent many years in and out of surgery and long hospitalizations, she possesses true inner strength – and a big personality, despite her petite stature. She continued to work full time before the pandemic, pushing through her pain, but was forced to leave her job and return home for health concerns.
Against all adversity, Tamar ventured to live on her own after the height of the pandemic, recently starting her second year as a law student, much to her family’s surprise.
“She really succeeded, even with a surgery in the middle [of the school year], and she finished her first year,” Yaira said. They all understood that for Tamar to succeed as a lawyer, she would have to overcome the challenges she faced working full time.
“We saw how she was enjoying her life and her understanding that she can take care of herself.”
Overcoming sickness, only to meet a tragic fate at the hands of Hamas
WITH A new outlook on life and a whole world in front of her, Tamar mustered immense inner strength to commit to attending the Supernova festival with her best friends. Yaira was understandably shocked when Tamar announced her plans, noting that only Adva would be home, studying for medical exams, so she would have nobody to pick her up if she needed help. Determined and undeterred, she bravely told her mother, “Don’t worry. This time, I will manage on my own.”
Yaira shared how excited and happy she was that her daughter would go do something normal with other young people, how her sisters and father were proud of her for overcoming another personal obstacle and challenging herself. She has been so optimistic and upbeat in recent months, and to see her blossoming into a more independent woman was a sign of good things to come.
Remembering last minute that the night before the festival was the eve of Simchat Torah, Tamar insisted on celebrating the holiday by having dinner with her father, Dudi, who was home alone, as Yaira was abroad.
“It was just the two of us, and we ordered Tamar’s favorite meal, sushi. We ate a lot of sushi,” Dudi remembered fondly.
“It was a typical dinner with Tamar. She just kept talking while I listened, with her jokes and humor, and then she went to see Adva, and that was it. It was just a regular meal.”
Tamar stopped briefly at her sister’s to gather some camping supplies, the last time anyone would see her, before heading down to the festival with her four best friends. Yaira was on a cruise, and Netta, had just landed in Boston to spend a year traveling in the United States.
Neither had any idea of the horror that was unfolding at home.
When alarms started blaring across Israel at 6:30 a.m., Adva’s first instinct was to check on her sister. In a reversal of roles, it was Tamar who reassured her older sister that everything was fine, that they were with the police, but that the roads were blocked. Around 7:30 a.m., Adva received a final message from Tamar, telling her that she would update them as she headed home.
WITH TWO of Tamar’s friends confirmed killed in the massacre, Adva frantically searched for Tamar through the hospital network, finding no sign of her sister. With their options quickly thinning and receiving no additional information from Israeli authorities, the only saving grace was to assume that she was among the more than 230 hostages abducted by Hamas.
As the weeks passed with no news, it was that hope that kept them going, worrying whether she had access to her much-needed healthcare and if her abductors were providing her with food she could eat. But for Tamar’s family, like so many others, that hope is quickly fading each day.
As the sounds of rockets echoed in the valley surrounding their peaceful home, Adva, at this point numbed to the ongoing war taking place over their heads, stated clearly: “The world made us a promise 75 years ago: Never again. The world needs to understand that this is the time to stand by that [promise]. They are demonstrating that when Jewish blood is spilled, it’s okay. When thousands of Jews are murdered in their homes, it’s okay to say ‘but…’ I didn’t hear anyone say after 9/11, ‘Oh, they destroyed the Twin Towers, but…’ or after the terror attacks in Paris in 2015.
“Why is our blood any different? Why whenever they talk about us, it’s different? The Western world leaders have been very supportive, but you see what’s happening in the streets… To say ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free’ is to call for genocide.”
AS FRIENDS and family continued to support the Gutman family through their most trying ordeal, they maintained their position that their daughter would soon be returned to them.
However, as new evidence from body camera footage from the October 7 massacre surfaces, Tamar’s family has surrendered to their greatest fear that they have kept subdued for weeks – that Tamar was among those who were massacred at Supernova. Her body has not been found, and they cannot bury her, mourn her, or grieve.
The fading hope that the Gutmans kept alive for weeks, and the grave conclusion to which they have surrendered, echo the looming dread of so many other families, who continue to find the courage to get through each day, hoping their loved ones will still return to them.
The Jerusalem Post and OneFamily are working together to help support the victims of the Hamas massacre and the soldiers of Israel who have been drafted to ensure that it never happens again.
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Support for a two-state solution in the Middle East among Arab Americans and Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza is on the rise, according to two recent surveys.
The more recent survey from YouGov and Arab News was published on Tuesday. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) published the other in September.
A survey of Arab Americans leading up to the US presidential elections found that half of those polled (50%) believed in seeking a two-state solution.
The poll touched upon the future of the conflict and possible resolutions to see its conclusion. Half of Arab-Americans polled believed in seeking a two-state solution with shared governance over Jerusalem. 34% believe that there should be one state where Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights, and 9% stated that they were unsure.A separate poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in September found that support for the concept of the two-state solution among Palestinians continues to rise and has the support of 39% of those polled.
According to PSR, three months prior, support for two states stood at around 32%. Figures were taken from Gaza and the West Bank, at 39% and 38%, respectively.
However, when asked about a separate Palestinian state not linked to the “two-state solution” and when state borders are identified as those of 1967, support rises to 59%, PSR found.
Half of the respondents prefer the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, while 19% prefer a confederation between the two states of Palestine and Israel. Only 10% prefer establishing a single state with equality between Israelis and Palestinians.
When asked about solving the conflict and reaching statehood, nearly half of Palestinian respondents (48%) said they would choose “armed struggle” as a way to achieve it (50% in the West Bank, 36% in Gaza).
However, a third said they preferred negotiations to end the conflict, and 15% said they would like to see popular peaceful resistance.
International calls for two-states
Recent US administrations and other global actors have called for the end to the ongoing war and to reach a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Biden administration has attempted to broker a hostage and ceasefire deal as a first step. In remarks made ahead of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in September, US President Joe Biden reiterated his support for a two-state solution.
“As we look ahead, we must also address the rise of violence against innocent Palestinians on the West Bank and set the conditions for a better future, including a two-state solution, where the world — where Israel enjoys security and peace and full recognition and normalized relations with all its neighbors, where Palestinians live in security, dignity, and self-determination in a state of their own,” Biden said.
The survey conducted by Arab News and YouGov was conducted using a sample of 500 Arab Americans across the United States from September 26 to October 1, 2024. The survey data have a margin of error of +/- 5.93%.
The poll conducted by PSR comprised a sample size of 1,200 people, of whom 790 were interviewed face-to-face in the West Bank and 410 in Gaza. The margin of error stood at +/-3.5%.
Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, will be remembered as the fighter whose war ultimately cost him his life. It would be premature to suggest that Sinwar’s death means the war in Gaza is over. Both Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had hidden agendas throughout the conflict.
Sinwar had a false vision from the outset. He thought the war he triggered on October 7 would bring about the end of Israel, defeat its army, and open the road to a liberated Jerusalem. He bit off more than he could chew and paid with his life and the lives of 42,000 Palestinians—a price he couldn’t have imagined or expected.
Netanyahu was similarly vague about his intentions. He couldn’t tell the military commanders exactly what he wanted to achieve through the war on Gaza. Commanders repeatedly tried to clarify the war’s objectives so their soldiers would know what they were supposed to achieve. Netanyahu never responded, raising questions about what sort of leader he was, taking his country into a war that the army became deeply engaged in without knowing where to go and what to achieve other than Kill Them All and Come Back Alone, as the 1968 Western action movie was titled.
Both men had reasons for extending the war because they felt their political careers and survival would end the day it ended. Sinwar thought the Israeli captives would become his wild card in pressuring Israel into meeting his demands. He erred. He never expected Netanyahu to turn his back on the captives, placing his political survival and that of his government ahead of the captives’ lives and fate.Sinwar thought the rising death toll among Palestinian civilians would force the international community to intervene, pressure Israel, and stop the war on his terms. He erred in this too. The miscalculated war brought more havoc on the Palestinians than on the Israelis. Assuming that the ratio of deaths among Palestinians and Israelis in almost every showdown was about 10 Palestinians for each Israeli, Sinwar thought that when the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s airstrikes crossed the threshold of 12,000 civilians, the world would jump to its feet and demand an immediate ceasefire. That didn’t happen. The ratio went up to 40:1, and the numbers kept increasing.
At the same time, the war seems to be in its beginning as the Israeli army runs in circles, displacing Palestinians from one place to another, changing tactics and goals, and returning to the northern Gaza Strip to mop it up, disregarding earlier announcements that the area had been cleansed of Hamas fighters in the first weeks of the Israeli ground assault.
In his recent interview with the Haredi weekly Mishpacha, Netanyahu argued he was right in standing by his intention to continue the war. He defended his stubborn stand in the face of army generals, public opinion, and international pressure in stalling any deal with Hamas because, as he said, history will remember him as Israel’s savior.
Therefore, for him, the ends always justify the means. That was the lesson he learned from his late father, who advised him to hand over parts of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority after the Wye River Memorandum if that would allow him to safeguard the rest of the “land of Israel.” In this war, Netanyahu behaved like a drunken driver who knew nothing about traffic lights and the meaning of a red light. To his credit, he made it, but at what price, other than gaining more egoism and costing both Israelis and Palestinians dearly?
When both leaders, Netanyahu and Sinwar, become hostages to their zero-sum addiction, the end is clear. Sinwar paid with his life. Netanyahu will eventually pay with his political career. No state commission of inquiry would ever disregard Netanyahu’s behavior before, during, and after October 7. The Israeli public will wake up from its intoxication from the tactical successes in the field to the ugly reality of how bad the war was for Israel and the region. The same applies to the Palestinians, even in Gaza.
Even though Sinwar was seen as personally responsible for the agony and plight of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza, words of mourning spread all over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In Arab culture, people believe in honoring the dead no matter how profound their differences with the deceased are. The images and videos that filled social networks of Sinwar’s last moments of life gave the man a prestige he may not have dreamed of among his people. An Israeli soldier who sent his drone into a building to check its interior spotted three armed Palestinians and suspected that Sinwar was one of them. The orders were given to the tank to hit that building. The drone returned to film and showed Sinwar, wounded and seated on an armchair, waving a wooden bar and throwing it at the drone. These images gave Sinwar a prestige none of the movement’s political leaders abroad ever had.
Who takes the steering wheel for Hamas?
What matters is not what the Palestinian public feels today about Sinwar’s death as much as the question of who will take over the steering wheel after him. Before discussing the potential successors, it is worth reminding everyone that any leader who fills Sinwar’s shoes will have the onus of proving to his constituency that he is no less harsh against the Israelis than Sinwar. Therefore, in the absence of an Israeli readiness to cut a deal that brings the Israeli captives back home, ends the war, and releases the agreed-upon list of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, no Hamas leader can move forward. Incentives are needed for whoever is going to run Hamas from now on.
If the lives of the Israeli captives mean something to the government of Israel, then everything should be done, and done now, to close the captives’ dossier and move on to a different reality not only in the Gaza Strip but in the region. The region needs a reality based on a political agreement between two states for two peoples to live side by side along the 1967 lines. No matter how long this war goes on, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or even beyond, a political settlement will always remain the way out. Why not take a shortcut and spare the Palestinians and the Israelis the pain of an ongoing and meaningless war? Honestly, I don’t see this happening soon. The wounds of the current war will take time to heal, if ever.
One dark prophecy about what may happen to the Israeli captives who are still alive is a decision by the local commanders of Hamas in Gaza to kill all the hostages if they are convinced that they don’t count in Israel’s long-term strategy. They might do it to avenge the killing of their commander or even to preemptively avenge their potential assassination by Israel since they see it coming today, tomorrow, or next year. Sinwar, too, understood that this would be the case with him, even if an interim deal were reached for him to leave Gaza and live elsewhere. He was sure that Israel’s long arm would hunt him down no matter where he hid.
The question is, who will take over from Sinwar? His brother Mohammed Sinwar seems to have the highest chance to fill his shoes. Mohammed was the one who kidnapped Gilad Shalit and kept for himself the veto power within Hamas not to sign any exchange deal with Israel if his brother, Yahya, was not on the list of the Palestinian prisoners destined to be released. One day, Mohammed explained that his mother told him she wouldn’t rest until she hugged her son, Yahya, at home. He took an oath to release him. He did it. Mohammed is a stubborn and ruthless commander and his brother’s closest aide and ally. The commander of the Khan Yunis Brigade, Mohammed is not that easy to deal with. Only a generous incentive can bring him on board. In the meantime, he is the one who will take over responsibility for the Israeli captives. Hamas has no intention to declare who the new boss is out of fear that he, too, would be assassinated by Israel.
Nevertheless, the name of Khalil al-Hayya popped up as the successor. He was the closest to Sinwar and his deputy. He belongs to the Iranian camp and is vehemently opposed to most political bureau members who are more affiliated with Turkey and Qatar. It is the fight between the Shia and Sunni camps of Islamism.
Izz al-Din Haddad, the commander of the Gaza Brigade and the one in charge of the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip, is also one of the potential successors. Even if Mohammed takes over, Haddad remains a candidate to take over once Mohammed is assassinated. They all know Israel would hunt them down just as it did with the senior command of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Muhammad Shabana, the commander of Hamas’ Rafah Brigade, is also one of the prominent commanders in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. He was added to the list of potential commanders to control Gaza during the war. None of these commanders knows or can be confident that he will still be around when the war in Gaza ends.
Regarding Hamas’ leadership abroad, Khaled Mashaal is currently the de facto leader. Living in Doha, Mashaal believes he can take Hamas away from the war in Gaza, transforming it into a political party with a reserved seat in Middle East politics. He did it before when he took over after the assassination in 2004 of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas. In two years, Mashal took Hamas to the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, which it had boycotted in 1996. The Arab media quoted him as saying that the time has come for Hamas to become political and join the Palestine Liberation Organization, insinuating his acceptance of the two-state solution.
Mashal is submitting his credentials as Hamas’ moderate leader with whom the West can do business. Whether the West would believe his words and subsequently embrace him is too early to judge. Most of the keys to a solution are in the hands of Israelis, the overriding military power that controls the flow of events in the region. Only if Israel is convinced that the war must end can it end. Otherwise, the sky is the limit.
Elias Zananiri is a veteran journalist from east Jerusalem who has held several senior positions in the PLO as a political adviser and media consultant over the past two decades.
The war between Israel and Hamas has devastated the Palestinian economy and left nearly all of Gaza’s population in poverty, with quality of life indicators such as health and education knocked back 70 years, the United Nations’ development agency said on Tuesday.
Launching a study on the war’s socioeconomic impacts, the UNDP’s Chitose Noguchi said the economy of the Palestinian territories – the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank – was now 35% smaller than it was at the start of Israel’s invasion of Gaza a year ago.
By some measures the poverty level in Gaza was now approaching 100% as a result of the disruption, with unemployment now at 80%, Noguchi said.
“The state of Palestine is experiencing unprecedented levels of setbacks,” she told a UN press conference in Geneva over a sometimes crackling line from Deir Al-Balah. “For Gaza, reversing development by an estimated 70 years to 1955.”Even under optimal conditions, with international aid remaining at current levels and flowing into Gaza and the West Bank unhindered, it would still take at least a decade for economic output to recover to pre-war levels, she said.
The war, launched by Israel after attacks by Hamas on Israeli territory on October 7 last year that killed about 1,200 people, has brought immense destruction to the Gaza Strip.
Schools, hospitals and other essential infrastructure have been razed to the ground. Nearly 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Hamas-run health ministry figures.
Some 3.3 million Palestinians, 2.3 million of them in Gaza and 1.5 million of them children, need urgent humanitarian assistance, the report said.
The cost of repairing damaged infrastructure was expected to run to $18.5 billion, almost the entire annual economic output of the Palestinian territories in 2022.
The war had taken a similarly severe toll on human capital, the report added, with 625,000 students in Gaza having no access to education at the end of September and 93% of school buildings severely damaged.
The situation was similar with regard to healthcare. A total of 986 health workers had been killed by the end of September, and less than half of primary healthcare centers were even partially functional.
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