There is a visceral, deeply Jewish reaction when watching the hostage videos from the Rafah tunnel.
We see their grim "routine" in captivity. We notice, even through the cruel staging by the Hamas terrorists, their gestures of kindness toward one another, the generosity and concern that flowed among Eden, Alex, Hersh, Ori, Carmel and Almog in that great darkness.
Heartbreaking new footage, recovered from items seized in Hamas terror tunnels, confirms that six Israeli hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi, were filmed lighting Hanukkah candles while held captive in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/DUu1mg62To
— Israel Hayom English (@IsraelHayomEng) December 11, 2025
That emotion has a name: shared destiny. It is a national feeling, not a private one. And it erupts with full force during national trauma. These videos are not private matters. Watching them, one cannot shake the sense that not only were those six held captive in the tunnel, but so were every Israeli. When Ori Danino gazes with tearful eyes at the Hanukkah candles, our eyes fill with tears, too. And when they rise from their worn-out mattresses to huddle together in a group embrace, even if under the orders of their captors, we, too, crave a collective embrace of our own.
Alongside the bottomless grief over their murder, the true loss is not just in the mistakes of the government and military at the time. It lies, above all, in our inability to see ourselves in that situation. Every Jew and Israeli must imagine themselves, even if but for a moment, inside that Rafah tunnel. Because in that tiny room deep beneath Gaza, all of Israel was represented, embodied in those six young people. What took place there was a deeply Jewish sense of shared fate: mutual responsibility, compassion, an instinctive acceptance of the other in their greatest hour of need.
That simple human truth, that sense of a common destiny, can and must be part of our lives above ground as well, in sovereign Israel. We must not allow cynical leaders, politicians or a jaded media to twist this story into anything else. This is the story, and it is both simple and powerful.
Photo: Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson's Unit
Like the 35 soldiers killed in the 1948 Convoy of the 35, like the 73 troops lost in the 1997 helicopter disaster, these six hostages murdered in the Rafah tunnel at the end of August 2024 form a heroic Jewish collective. Their story must teach us something about our life here. Their deaths were not in vain. Look at them. Remember them.
