“After everything they went through together, to separate them now too? Why?” asked Ruti Strum, whose son Iair Horn, 22, was freed last week while his brother, Eitan Horn, 20, remains in Gaza. When officials informed her only Iair would be released, “I couldn’t stop asking—why? Why are you doing this to them? Together they were a force.”
Strum said Iair’s homecoming has been bittersweet. “I know he left his brother behind. He knows what condition he was in when he left him,” she said. “I believe—he is part of us, he’s missed every moment.”
Yael Adar has no one to welcome home. Her son, Sgt. Tamir Adar, 19, was killed in the October 7 assault and his body is still held by Hamas. Adar, who has waited 559 days, said her grief has been compounded by what she calls national neglect. “My feelings are heavy. We were abandoned. Someone was supposed to protect him, and they didn’t,” she said.
Across Israel, families share a single demand: no phased arrangements, no prioritization—just one comprehensive deal to bring every hostage and every fallen soldier home.
