Israel On October 7, it completely changed. The association lost 1,200 citizens in the land, sea and air attack by Palestinian militias Hamas in border communities Gaza Strip. Those who lost their loved ones have been traumatized for weeks, but there are 239 families who have not rested since that tragic Saturday. Chicken Avigdori is part of one of them. This screenwriter lives in Hod Hasharon, near Tel Aviv. He has nine relatives detained in Gaza. They were all kidnapped at Kibbutz Beeri. Perhaps his 16-year-old son Omer saved his life by deciding at the last minute to attend a family celebration attended by his mother Sharon, 52, and his 12-year-old sister Noam. He stayed in Gaza for 43 days with seven other family members, ranging in age from 67 to 3 years old.
How did your life change on October 7?
It turned my life upside down. Usually my job is to write comedy and satire for Israeli television, and frankly these kinds of disasters, these kinds of massacres, these kinds of terrible things done to my people in general and my family in particular, have always changed my life. imaginably. I am a man who has been on duty since October 7th. I have a mission to bring my daughters, my daughter, my wife and all the hostages back home. These people are civilians. They should not be in captivity. And this is not a Jewish issue. This is not an Israeli-Palestinian issue. This is a humanitarian issue. Hamas is not like the Nazis, it is not like them. Hamas-Islamic State is Nazi. Ideologically and methodologically they are the new Nazis. There is no other way to evaluate them, so the rules of the game are completely different when dealing with Nazis.
His wife and daughter were missing for two weeks after October 7, with no one confirming to him that they had been kidnapped in Gaza.
Not knowing where your loved ones were or whether they were alive or not was pure hell. They were the only ones in the entire family who were considered missing and not kidnapped, and it was hell. Because I have a 16-year-old son with me. We are the only two people left from our family. Since we are only two of four people, we call it our disabled family. I don’t want this pain caused by not knowing to happen to anyone I know. For two weeks we did not know whether they were alive, whether they were dead or not, where they were, what happened to them. Nothing happened for two weeks and the confirmation of the abduction was of course a relief.
Families of the kidnapped have been one of the most mobilized groups in Israeli society since October 7. How were they behaving?
Making things, giving interviews, telling the world our stories. We have many meetings with Israelis and people abroad who can influence their situation. We are in a war and we need to go fight. There were big demonstrations in which we participated and a big march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. We even met with a Qatari negotiator. We are doing everything we can to get them home and get them home now because time is of the essence. There are babies, elderly people and children in Gaza. People held in captivity can harm them physically, emotionally and psychologically every second. We do not have time. There is a lot of debate in Israel and abroad about what we should and shouldn’t do about this situation, but the truth, the hard truth, is that we don’t have to engage in this debate. Now we must release them at all costs.
For what it’s worth, does this also include the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli prisoners?
Definitely. Whatever it takes. This deal will come with a very high price tag. I know it, the Government knows it, and the Israeli people know it too. People support us knowing the price we will have to pay. We were surprised and attacked on October 7, so as a country we must pay a high price for our people to return home.
Do you think your government is doing enough?
No way. The government isn’t doing enough and it’s not a matter of whether I believe it or not. It’s a matter of facts. Four of us were released and one person was rescued by the Army, but five of us in total were separated. These 43 days are not enough, so believing is out of the question. It’s a matter of results. As a result, Israel still has 239 civilians in the Gaza Strip. So if they are still there, it is clear that our Government and the other side are not doing enough to bring them back.
Are you afraid that the ongoing Gaza war, with constant airstrikes and attacks by the Israeli army, will endanger the lives of your family members?
Yes, of course I believe that. We asked several senior figures within Israel’s ranks if they could reassure them that the people who have already died died only because of terrorists and not because of the Army’s attacks. I’m sorry to say we don’t approve of this. So if they can’t confirm this, it means that the ground operation that has been going on for two weeks has not benefited the hostages. I am not a politician. I am not a general. I am not a military strategist. I’m doing comedy. This is my job. But maybe because comedy is always about thinking about things a little differently, maybe you can hear me as someone who sees things a little differently and starts to think differently. This is my hope.
Do you trust the army?
I’m sure they’re doing their best to get information about the hostages, and they’re still very careful about harming civilians and hostages. This is not a cliché. I still believe that the Israeli army is the most moral army in the world. We do not bomb civilians. While there are only Hamas members around, we ask them to go south so that we can move more easily. We are trying to protect civilians as much as possible. We are trying to avoid a humanitarian crisis. But it’s still a war. There are still civilians injured. But this is not the fault of the Israeli army. This is completely and absolutely Hamas’ fault: If you set up your headquarters inside hospitals, if you hide rockets in schools, nurseries, hospitals. Hamas uses its own people as human shields. Hamas cynically and brutally exploits the lives of civilians. My impression of the world so far is that Hamas and Hamas leaders do not care about their own people. They only care about themselves. They are hiding.
How do you think the war on October 7 and its aftermath with a government that did not fully address the prisoner issue will affect Israel in the long term?
I am a man of hope. And as a protester, as a family member of the captives, I receive a lot of support from many segments of Israeli society: young people, old people, left, right, Orthodox Jews… I believe that from this moment of suffering, more united by grief and conflict, more together, We can raise a new Israeli society that puts the value of life, the value of peace, the value of unity first. I really hope, and I’m talking to people I’ve never talked to before: peaceful Jews, Orthodox Jews, Arab citizens, all kinds of tribes in Israel. We want them to come home, and maybe from this place of grief and pain we can grow something new, better, stronger.
How are you?
I have hope, I have anger, I have sadness. Sometimes my mind fights with my heart, but I think my situation is a metaphor for the state of Israeli society. We are suffering. We are losing people. We lost 1,400 people on the first day (1,200 according to the last official balance sheet, which corrects the number downwards), but we have no choice. This is our place. This is our country. This has been the dream of the Jewish people for 2000 years: to have a country that protects them. The country failed to protect 1,400 people and 239 hostages on October 7. But we can do some things now. We can save everyone alive. We can and must eliminate Hamas, but we must do so after rescuing the hostages. Because life, every life matters, and life is the most important thing we have to fight for.