As hostage-deal lobby disbands, a new group forms to home in on long road to recovery |
Gabriela Leimberg still hasn’t gone back to work.
Over 820 days ago, the Jerusalem social psychologist was one of 251 people taken hostage during the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023. In late November of that year, she was freed, along with dozens of other women, elderly, and children let go in an initial week-long ceasefire.
Like Leimberg, many of the 173 hostages who returned to Israel alive have struggled since to find a way forward, seeking to put the trauma behind them even as they continue to advocate for the release of the last remaining hostage held in Gaza, slain police officer Ran Gvili.
“This reality is for a long time, this story of ours isn’t over,” Leimberg, who worked with special needs adults before her kidnapping, told The Times of Israel. “Something happened to us, a one-time event that should never happen again, and it created a new category of society that needs a body that supports us.”
After being released, Leimberg joined the hostage advocacy movement, understanding that being with other hostages’ families provided a sense of power and community.
Leimberg was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, along with her teenage daughter Mia Leimberg, her brother Fernando Marman, their sister Clara Marman, and Clara Marman’s partner Luis Har.
The sisters and Mia Leimberg were released after two months of Hamas captivity, along with Mia’s dog, a Shih Tzu named Bella, who was hidden in her pajamas when the family was abducted. More than two months later, on February 12, 2024, Marman and Har were rescued by IDF forces and brought home to Israel.
“As a former hostage, I’m recognized as a terror victim, I have a government [stipend], and so does Mia,” said Leimberg. “But my........