By Yulia Tseytlin
PROMPT — I will not rest until ...
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
But I won’t show you any — you’ve seen them already.
No? Google Nir Oz.
Google Beeri, Nir Itzhak, Nahal Oz.
Kfar Aza.
I also won’t show you any video.
No young people fleeing the music festival pursued by terrorists.
No little boys poked with sticks.
No bloodied women paraded around naked.
And I won’t tell you about the murdered.
About a ninety-year-old Holocaust survivor put on her knees and shot from behind Nazi-style.
About families burned alive in their homes.
About kids tied together and brutally executed.
About babies beheaded.
1,300 slaughtered in several hours.
But I want to tell you about those still alive,
If eleven days in a living hell of Hamas’ captivity can be called life.
Two hundred people, who at this precise moment are raped, tortured, abused.
Dozens of children, some as young as six months.
Girls and boys. Families. Elderly, sick.
I’m telling you about them because I know them.
Those are my teachers and my classmates.
My family’s friends and neighbors.
My people.
Bring them back. Now.
Twenty-seven years ago, Yulia Tseytlin immigrated to a Kibbutz in the Gaza Envelope. For many years she called this beautiful, friendly, peaceful place home. Now her heart is broken. Stand with Israel. Bring the hostages back. Yulia writes from Kaufering, Bavaria, Germany.