I can’t believe it happened.

Three hostages, young women named Romi, Emily and Doron were freed from their 15-months-long captivity in Gaza.  Like the rest of the world, I held my breath until they were back on Israeli soil. As I write this, they have just been reunited with their mothers.  Perhaps you need to know nothing more than that.

How these women survived more than a year of mental, physical, and likely sexual torture defies explanation but survive they did, and now, on day 471, they are home.  Or better put, as the IDF says when hostages are returned, “The diamonds are in our hands.”

No matter your politics or opinion of this deal, whatever you might find wrong about it – and there’s plenty — I urge you to support it. Thousands of vicious terrorists released for so few innocents?  Yes.  The calculus is cruel and uneven but still the answer must be yes.  Because despite the cost — and the cost is high — all the hostages must come home. 

The psyche of Israel was shredded by the hubris of the leadership that allowed this nightmare to happen in the first place – a sentiment expressed by many, including some of Israel’s top generals.  The Hamas terrorists who planned and executed this attack, while beaten down, are not beaten, and will continue their hateful murderous ideology for generations to come. The prisoners being released will surely join their ranks.  There will be no détente, no peace, no mutual understanding.  There will be no reckoning, no kumbaya, no solution.  I wish it was otherwise, but that’s the hard truth.

In the aftermath of October 7 – otherwise known as October 8 — the world pointed fingers at the wrong aggressors and anti-Semitism breached long-shaky levees, letting floodgates of hate flow unchecked, exposing many fronts to be fought.  But returning stolen Israelis to their homeland must be the priority. Until what was taken is restored, Israel cannot move on. Like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, Israel is incomplete without all its parts.

I urge those misguided college crusaders to look at these three women. Not much older than you, they were dancing or sleeping when they were attacked, two of them shot, all thrown into terrorists’ cars and forcibly taken into dark tunnels where they were likely raped and starved and worse for 15 months.  Do these women seem like colonizers?  Are they your vision of oppressors? Look at them.  If you’re honest, you will see that they are not.  

Romi called her mother when she ran from the Nova festival, staying on with her for assurance while the terrorists argued who would get to kidnap her and while her friends around her died from their wounds. Romi’s 87-year-old grandmother recently knocked on the doors of Cabinet members to plead for Romi to be freed. Emily was abducted from her home where she was ultimately blindfolded and forced into a car…but not before she watched the terrorists shoot her dog in the neck. Doron was on the phone with her parents while she was taken from the same kibbutz as Emily. Her last words were “They have me.”

I have two children near Emily, Romi and Doron’s ages.  I like to kiss the neck of one and take in his scent.  My habit with the other is to tuck his hair behind his ear and watch his slow smile as I keep my hand on his head longer than I need to.  Today I am reminded what a privilege those small gestures are. One can only pray that the mothers of the three are doing just that, holding their daughters, rubbing their heads, touching their cheeks, telling them that they will never again be separated.  Equally important is to acknowledge the mothers who will never again know the privilege of touching their child’s cheek.  I think of Rachel Goldberg Polin and all the mothers who have lost their children, or whose children will not come home alive, and mourn with them, well aware of the complexity of a day like today.

Today was a good day in an ocean of very bad days. I wish Doron, Emily and Romi healing.  I hope the national joy felt by their return unifies Israel.  And I pray that in days ahead that we have many more diamonds in hand. We need them all.