'I hear him screaming': a hostage's brother waits in torment

Sometimes two years seem to have lasted for ever. Sometimes Gal Gilboa-Dalal feels trapped in an eternal present, still living the agonising, endless day when his brother, Guy, was kidnapped by Hamas.

- Emma Graham-Harrison

The siblings were at the Nova festival, dancing in a grove of trees just a few kilometres from Gaza, when militants broke through the border to launch the deadliest attacks since Israel was founded and take 250 people hostage.

“Time has been passing very weirdly,” Gal said. “In a way I feel that I was with him at Nova yesterday and in a way I feel like I haven't seen my brother in more than 100 years.”

The family’s tragedy is a very public one. Guy’s face is on posters around the country, from the airport to suburban garden walls, news about his condition regularly makes headlines, and his fate is debated on talkshows and in parliament. But their grief is lonely. There were relatively few others in Israel who could understand even their initial agony, the waves of hope that Guy was alive, the fear that he would be killed, and the desperation about the abuse and torture he faces.

After two years, most of the other hostages have now come home or were killed inside Gaza either by their captors or Israeli forces. Only 20 are thought to still be alive, although militants are also holding 28 bodies, denying their families the closure of a burial.

"It's so hard missing him all day every day, thinking about him all day every day," Gal said. "And as time goes by it's getting harder and harder [to bear], and harder and harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel." There has been joy and pain in watching other hostages released.

Bonded by the horror of having a loved one taken captive, many relatives describe themselves as a big family and Guy is no exception.

"You can't not feel happy for them," he says of watching dozens of reunions broadcast live. But the past two years have taken a heavy toll, forcing his little sister to grow up early and ageing his parents. So there is envy as well.