The world is paying tribute to the roughly 1,200 lives lost during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust. About 250 others were taken hostage that day, and according to the Israeli government, a total of 97 are still unaccounted for.
As the world holds vigils and ceremonies to honor their lives, families like Yehuda Beinin’s hold their breath and hope for an end to the struggle and for all the loved ones to return home.
The Philadelphia-born Israeli American grew up in Central Jersey, but has lived in Israel for the last 50 years. That was all turned upside down when his daughter Liat and her husband Aviv Atzili were kidnapped by Hamas during the rampage last year. Liat was released after two months of captivity, but Aviv was killed.
“We are suffering … what could best be defined as an ongoing low-level depression over the loss of Aviv,” said Beinin in an interview with NJ Spotlight News.
“Aviv was a wonderful father, he was a wonderful mechanic, he was a wonderful artist,” Beinin said. “And his loss is a tremendous loss to his kids, to his family. It’s just unfathomable that he’s not with us. And it’s very depressing. But together with that, my daughter, wife and I, and our grandchildren have displayed incredible resilience.”
Beinin spoke from his family’s bomb shelter at their home in Kibbutz Shomrat, about 18 miles from the Lebanon border. Code-red air sirens were signaled as the family returned home from a vigil at the Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel. He has been vocal about the culpability of both Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what he calls their “colossal failures” that led to the pain suffered by Israelis and Palestinians.
“There are too many things that go to define [Netanyahu’s] political ethos that are, in my opinion and the opinion of a lot of other people, rather despicable,” he said.
