Rimon and Yagen during their wedding in Kibbutz Nirim.Photo:courtesy Kirsht Family
courtesy Kirsht Family
On Monday,Hamasreleased a hostage video showing three kidnapped Israeli women sitting in plastic chairs against a blank wall. For relatives of Rimon Kirsht Buchshtav, who was among the women shown, the wrenching footage was the first clear sign that she could still be alive.
On Oct. 7, Rimon, 36, and her husband Yagev Buchshtav, 34 — who met in high school and married in 2021 — were kidnapped from their home during Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel, which killed around 1,400 Israelis, injured thousands and saw hundreds more taken hostage in what proved to be the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
While hiding in a safe room inside her home in Kibbutz Nirim, an agricultural community located in southern Israel near the Gaza border, Rimon texted her family that she saw fire and terrorists outside shooting “everywhere.”
Rimon and Yagen during their wedding on 12.3.21. “The date was selected due to their love of numbers and riddles,” says her brother Lotam.courtesy Kirsht Family
A week later, the Israeli army told the Kirsht family they believed both Rimon and Yagev had been kidnapped and taken to Gaza. But “until that video that came out of Hamas, we couldn’t tell what happened to them,” says Yael, who is married to Rimon’s brother Lotem and is currently studying for her Ph.D. in the United States.
“We didn’t know because in the [safe] room there were signs of struggle — blood, bullet holes,” she says, adding that in the tight-knit community, “so many people were murdered and burned, and bodies were mutilated. So you couldn’t tell who was alive and who was dead at that point.”
Dan Kitwood/Getty
Monday’s hostage video has given the Kirsht family little comfort. “I could see Rimon there, but I don’t know when that video was taken,” says Yael. “All I can know for certain is that a terror organization that murdered 1,400 people, raped women and beheaded babies held my sister-in-law."
“I don’t know what her status is now,” Yael adds. “I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. All I can see from that video is that she was very, very thin. I could also see that she was not wearing glasses, so she was not able to see anything for the past 24 days.”
Yael worries that there was no sign of Yagev in the hostage video. The two “were always attached to each other,” she says. “I don’t know why the women are separated from the men and what’s happening to the women right now. I’m absolutely terrified.”
The Kirsht family chiefly asks that the Israeli government make the hostages’ safe return “the top priority of anything that’s happening,” says Yael. “The devastation in Israel, from the fact that the army was not there to protect those who were murdered, is heartbreaking. The least we can ask for right now is that our loved ones are returned to us immediately. That should be the first priority, and really, as far as we are concerned, the only priority.”
Rimon Kirsht Buchshtav, far right, her husband Yagev Buchshtav, Yael Nidam Kirsht, bottom left, and Lotem sharing a picnic in 2022.courtesy Kirsht Family
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The hostage video released Monday shows two other women, identified as Yelena Trupanov and Daniel Aloni.
Yael adds: “The abuse does not stop. Not only do they take our loved ones, but now they’re using our loved ones as part of their propaganda to share their narrative, their story, whatever they want to say using our people. It’s their tool, they’re pawns in this very cruel game.”
source: people.com
