Or and Yagil Yaakov, 17 and 13, were released from captivity last month after 52 days in Gaza.
On October 7th, Or and Yagil were sleeping at their home alone in Kibbutz Nir Oz. When the terrorists entered their home, they called their mother, who was sleeping at a different kibbutz that night with her daughter. She heard Yagil beg the terrorists: “Don’t take me, I’m too young.” The boys’ father, Yair Yaakov, and his wife, Meirav Tal, who lived in a separate home on the kibbutz, were also abducted.
Or and Yagil’s mother, Renana Gome-Yaakov, fought a fierce battle while her sons were in captivity to have them released, co-founding an initiative that fought for the release of the children in captivity.
Renana spoke to Channel 12 News about her family’s ordeal. Her two boys were held separately and Yigal was held by Islamic Jihad, who released a hostage video featuring him and Chana Katzir.
“I put crazy pressure on the members of the Cabinet so that Yagil would be on the list,” she said. “He was being held by Islamic Jihad and had to be transferred to Hamas, where his brother Or was. The condition was family reunification so Yagil had to be transferred.”
Regarding the hostage video, Yagil told her that he “received a scripted message and the most important thing for him is that everyone knows that he didn’t mean what he said in the video at all.” Renana added that Yagil told her that “they did 50 takes for the video, transferring him to a special “studio” to produce it.
Or was held together with other members of his kibbutz but Yagil was held alone except for a few days when he was together with a Thai worker who was seriously wounded.
Renana elaborated: “He looked out the window and unfortunately watched a lot of Al Jazeera and learned Arabic – that’s how he was able to speak with his captors. He told me: ‘I didn’t have my phone so my brain began to work.’ He learned everything about his captors – who they were and how many children they had. He even learned about the family in the apartment facing the window.”
The boys are happy to be home but are extremely worried about their father. “The knowledge that their father is there, in the terrible place they were in, is unbearable for them,” Renana said.
Renana is not resting on her laurels following her sons’ return but is working to release the captives left behind in Gaza. “Men were left in captivity like that’s okay. The father of my children was abducted after he was injured, probably seriously, and we have no idea what his condition is. We haven’t received any signs of life and I’m very worried.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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One Response
1. Children are good at learning languages.
2. Israeli public schools routinely include Arabic language instruction.
3. Arabic is linguistically closer to Hebrew than almost any other living language (Syriac and Maltese come close, but they are very minor; the Ethiopian languages are more dissimilar).