OPINION: Time to regain our strength and fight even harder for Israel

Over the last 11 months since October 7th, most of us have gone though a whole series of emotions. It has been a constant rollercoaster with emotions ranging from shock, sorrow, sadness, anger, frustration, inspiration, incredulity, more sadness, more anger, pride, amazement, more inspiration and so many more.

But as we heard of the news that the IDF had recovered the bodies of six hostages, I suddenly realised that I had a new feeling.

I am numb. I am not sure my body knows how to react to the news. I am so sad for the families of these hostages. The pain they have endured for the last 11 months cannot be imagined and to hear this news where they lost their loved ones because they were close to potentially being freed is so devastating, that I have no words.

It is not just sadness of their unnecessary death. Unfortunately, since October 7th, we have had so many victims from the day, from our courageous soldiers, from the victims of terrorist attacks. It has become unfortunately a routine that we can never be accustomed to but that we have learned to live with. Because we knew we had to be strong to be able to beat this evil enemy.

The numbness comes from the way they were killed. From the reports I have been able to read, these hostages were literally executed once Hamas realised that the IDF was close and that they had nowhere to go. They decided that instead of going ahead and doing a deal with Israel under the mediation of Qatar and Egypt, it was better just to kill them to ensure that we would not be able to recover them alive.

I am numb because I don’t think I can understand this evil anymore. Maybe I should not be that surprised. This is a group that decided to start a war with Israel without having any concept of protecting its population. As a matter of fact, their strategy was to use the population as a shield for them. This is a group who were killing Jews and Israelis of any religion is a reason to call your parents to express your pride.

And now this is a group that prefer to execute innocent civilians rather than do a deal to save their own people.

As many others, I had been hoping for the last few weeks that a hostage deal was coming. Some respite from the now 11 month war in Gaza. I don’t know exactly what has been happening in the negotiations over the last few months. Maybe a deal could have been done or not, I clearly don’t have anywhere enough information to know what would have been the right decision.

I will leave it to politicians to use the event to blame different sides but what I do know is that it was Hamas who killed these hostages in cold blood. Today I am numb but in honour of these hostages and the families, we cannot stay numb for long. We need to regain our strength and fight even stronger for our country.

We need our leaders to realize that this is not about them but about the country. That we cannot continue to win this fight if we keep getting divided. We need strength and purpose together with compassion and empathy. It is true that our enemies might only understand strength but without compassion and empathy for our own people, the strength will not be sufficient. We are grieving too much, and leaders need to give us a way forward but also able to comfort us from the pain. President Herzog’s statement captured the moment perfectly.

I don’t know if these events make a deal more or less likely. And I don’t know if it changes the complicated calculations of the situation in the north and Iran. And the truth is that I have no desire to get into political arguments today here anymore.

What I know is that we need to make sure that with the same strength and power that we need to defeat our evil enemies, we need the compassion and empathy for the families and the country who grieves with them.

I don’t want to feel numb again.

• Edward Misrahi is a businessman, philanthropist and former chair of BICOM (Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre). He made aliyah in 2020.