"For 500 days and nights I've missed my beloved firstborn son so much. I have tears in my eyes now when I hear that number. It's inhuman. I'm still stuck on October 7. I must replay, every night, our last conversation. My Edan called before 7 AM and spoke loudly because of the noise around him. I hear explosions in the background that won't stop, and Edan tells me: 'You won't believe what I'm seeing here – war. I took shrapnel to my helmet, but I'm okay.' And I, his mother, beg him: 'Edan, take care of yourself, protect yourself, I'm with you, I love you so much,'" Yael Alexander recounts.
The call was cut off. Edan was taken captive to Gaza from a military post near Nirim kibbutz near the Gaza border. Yael says she was beside herself. "You're just a shell, you're finished. We weren't human beings. I couldn't sleep or eat. Boom. Suddenly your child disappears. For five nerve-wracking days we didn't know day from night. We opened many operations rooms, until after several agonizing days they informed us Edan was captive in Gaza. An insane nightmare. But at least we knew he was alive and walking on his feet."
"It was like a knife in the heart"
Since then, Yael, an artist, and her husband, Adi, a diamond dealer, who live in the US, haven't stopped for even a moment crisscrossing Washington and other American states. Edan has American citizenship, and his parents now dedicate their lives to fighting with all their might for his return from captivity – along with all the other hostages. They leave their occupations for days each week for the struggle. Last Friday afternoon, Yael arrived in Israel just as the names of three more released hostages were announced. By Saturday evening she was already at the Hostages Square, raising Edan's photo on stage. "I admit it was difficult for me. This is my first time in Israel during a release. The TV images of what Hamas is doing simply hurt my stomach. They're stressful."
As part of their heroic struggle, Yael and Adi met with, among others, President Donald Trump ("he's very committed to the hostages"), as well as administration officials and other figures. They conduct interviews and work tirelessly to influence and bring back their captive son. "It's not Jewish, not ethical, and not moral not to support getting all the hostages out immediately, and now," says Yael, "certainly not to support stage two of the deal, during which our Edan is finally supposed to leave this terrible captivity."
"We saw the latest returnees, and for me, it was like a knife in the heart. On one hand, I was happy for the families, and on the other hand, it wasn't simple to see them. Edan fought to be in the army. Why, why aren't they fighting for him now in return? I cry out – give me back my son already! Bring all the hostages home!"
"He wouldn't give up serving in the IDF"
Edan is their firstborn son. When he was just two and a half months old, Yael (45) and Adi (52) moved to the US, and from age 4 Edan grew up in New Jersey. He has a sister, Mika (18), and a brother, Roy (13), who recently celebrated his bar mitzvah without his brother.
A warm, united, enveloping, and loving family. Yael speaks with sparkling eyes about her Edan: a child full of joy, charismatic, who always knew how to unite his many friends around him. She gets emotional talking about him, her voice cracking from time to time.
"Our Edan was always super social, super family-oriented. A talented and beloved child, always smiling, someone who really loved life. We were always very, very close. Edan and I loved to travel together for a day of fun in New York. We had deep, moving conversations. He's the funniest person in the world. Hilarious. He devoured life. How much I love this child."
After finishing high school in the US, while his many friends went to study in college, Edan refused to give up on military service in Israel. "It wasn't simple for us at first," Yael recalls, "but Edan was very determined. He was in the Garin Tzabar program here in New York and made aliyah in August 2022. A young man, my precious boy. It was hard for him at first with the distance from home, and for us, too. We missed him very much. Fortunately, I have a very large family in Israel who embraced him, and we also came to Israel a lot and were with him. He, for his part, made sure to come visit us."
In Israel, Edan lived in Kibbutz Hatzor, where "He has a wonderful adoptive family," according to Yael. He enlisted in the Golani Brigade in mid-December 2022 as a lone soldier. He frequently visited his grandparents, as well as other family members.
Two months before Black Saturday, Edan traveled to visit his family in the US. Yael surprised him when she decided to come to Israel a month and a half later to meet him and her family here. "I arrived in Israel on September 31, 2023, and Edan and I spent a lot of time together. All the time. With my family in Tel Aviv, with grandmother, Varda, and grandfather, Baruch, with my siblings. We went on an art tour, ate malabi, the dessert he loves so much. And we kept hanging out. That's what Edan is like, full of vitality and energy. We were at the beach, and then went to eat hamburgers. He was happy."
"He feels us from afar"
To Yael's regret, Edan had to return to his base near Nirim. She still managed to drive him to Hatzor, they even took photos in the car and at the entrance to his home in the kibbutz. She didn't know these would be her last pictures with him until he returns from captivity.
"On the evening of Simchat Torah, on Friday, the day before October 7, Edan was with us for Kiddush on FaceTime. A handsome boy. There was a wonderful atmosphere. We agreed to talk the next morning. Who knew our next conversation would already be during a terrible war. Our lives turned upside down. It tears my heart apart. Makes me cry so much."
"My son had a sweet life in the US, and he chose to be somewhere else, in Israel. What kind of terrible reality is this? I want them to bring him back to us already. What happened to us? What kind of leadership do we have? Where is the right, just judgment? I say to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 'Think for just one moment what would happen if this was your son.'"
Yael says she must also take care of her two other children, to be strong for them too. She admits that often they are the ones strengthening her. She tells how Mika has already spoken several times at massive rallies across the US for the hostages ("in front of 600,000 people in the crowd").
"They're amazing, my children. They were unwillingly enlisted in the struggle, in the war to bring their brother back from Gaza. Edan was supposed to come to Roy's bar mitzvah celebration, six months after the day he was kidnapped. That obviously didn't happen. We all went to the event wearing shirts with Edan's picture and the call to bring him home now. Mika and Roy miss their brother very much, they're both very close to him. Like us, they don't stop working toward the goal of his return to them."
Yael also tells about the proof of life she received from her son, after 421 days in captivity. "I was in Israel at the time. I suddenly heard they were going to release a video of Edan, our son, and the ground fell out from under me. I couldn't stop crying. It was shattering. Edan appeared in the video pale and thinner, didn't look like our Edan. I was overcome with a range of emotions. On one hand, it was important proof of life for us. Look, Edan is alive. But this is your child, and you see him in such a state. I just wanted to hug him already. I'm an optimistic person, and I want to see good things. My son is strong, and I know he can survive this. I believe he feels us from afar. Since the video we haven't received any additional proof of life from him, and I repeat our request again: get him out of there already!"
She tells again and again that her heart is "constantly torn" and seeking solace. What does a mother hold onto, 500 days without her beloved son?
"I'm eagerly waiting for my meeting with Edan," says the lioness mother, who has come to Israel again to fight for his release. "I just want to sit next to him. He has very comforting shoulders. I'll put my head on his shoulder and tell him 'how wonderful, how wonderful that we're together again.' I don't know what he'll want when he's with us again. Maybe he'll say he's craving Thai food. Maybe sushi. I just want to reach that moment already – when our Edan will sit with us at home."
