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Israeli hostage Elad Katzir, whose physique was recovered and returned to Israel on Saturday, had lengthy felt unsafe on Israel's border with Gaza.
In an interview with The New York Occasions in 2009, after Palestinian rocket assaults adopted a lethal three-week Israeli offensive in opposition to Hamas in Gaza, Mr. Katzir instructed a reporter that he was feeling a panic.
“I don’t really feel any victory,” Mr. Katzir stated on the time, when the combating ended with a shaky ceasefire. “I nonetheless don't really feel protected.”
Mr Katzir, 47, had deep roots in Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel, the place he was born and from the place he was kidnapped throughout a Hamas-led assault on October 7. There fields of wheat and potatoes prolong proper as much as the Gaza border fence, inside view of the residence buildings, water towers and minarets of the Palestinian village of Abasan simply past.
Kibbutz residents had been cautious: When driving via the fields throughout that 2009 journey, Mr. Katzir would cease the automobile solely behind clumps of timber or bushes — cowl in case of sniper fireplace.
This small village was one of many hardest hit communities on 7 October, with 1 / 4 of its roughly 400 inhabitants killed or taken hostage. They included Mr. Katzir and his father, who have been killed, and his mom, who was taken to Gaza. She was launched in November, considered one of a dozen residents of Nir Oz who have been returned to Israel in a single day as half of a bigger group of hostages launched.
Mr. Katzir's cousin, Dalita Katzenelnbogen, then stated she was nonetheless involved for him and different detainees in Gaza, and famous that Israeli troops have been on the bottom there.
“I hope the struggle will finish quickly,” he stated, “for the sake of Israelis and Palestinians who don’t help Hamas.”
“We’ve got to discover ways to dwell subsequent to one another,” he stated.