Rivka Bohbot, wife of Israeli hostage Elakana Bohbot, spoke about seeing her husband in a Hamas propaganda video to Israeli media on Thursday.
A year and a half after Elkana Bohbot said goodbye to his wife Rivka and their 3-year-old son Ram to work at the Nova Music Festival on October 6, a day before the massacre, Hamas released a video of him and hostage Yosef-Chaim Ohana.
The video revealed the pair crying from a tunnel.
"That's not my husband's face. I saw anger. I didn't feel it was just what Hamas told him to say; he was speaking from the heart," Rivka said.
She received the update about the video while Ram was driving back from kindergarten.
"I stopped on the side, started watching, looked at my husband's lips, cheeks, sunken eyes, and burst into tears. My son asked, 'Why are you crying?' and I said, 'Just a moment, Ram,' before saying, 'Mom misses Dad.' I couldn't show him the video. This isn't my husband; it's another person. This isn't the man who left us on October 6 with a smile and blonde hair. That's how my son should remember his father. This is a video no child should see."
For a long time, the Bohbot family rarely spoke or gave interviews to the media and was among the less prominent and known families in the hostages' families' struggle.
Rivka, who immigrated to Israel from Colombia nine years ago, concentrated on trying to gain the support of the pro-Palestinian Colombian president for the struggle to free her husband and felt more comfortable giving interviews in her native language.
In Israel, she said there were those who recommended "not to put Elkana at the forefront," without elaborating on who made these recommendations.
"I regret listening to the recommendations not to be in the media and not to put him in the front. We stayed on the sidelines instead of going out and fighting out of a desire to protect him. We didn't want him to be in the front, and in the end, he remained behind," she said.
What caused the change in strategy, according to Rivka, was the hostage deal approved by the government in January and the division between phase one and phase two.
"Elkana was supposed to be in phase one. He is a humanitarian (case): he has asthma, and he has a child. The State of Israel made a mistake by not putting fathers on the list; my child has universal rights."
She spoke about how Ram has been coping as a child growing up without his father for a year and a half, explaining that a month after the kidnapping, she explained that "bad people took him."
"We did a kind of theater with the psychologist, where there are many people with a father inside a house, and they can't get out. And there's a box on the side with planes, ambulances, police, etc. We told him that the army was looking for Dad to bring him home. Once, he watched The Lion King and said his father was in the sky, like Simba had gone to talk to Mufasa through the stars.
"The next day, he did this ceremony in kindergarten – he went out to the yard and shouted to the sky, 'Dad,' and the teachers asked what happened and said, 'You know that dad really wants to come back.' he said, 'My dad is in the sky. In kindergarten, he made binoculars and said he was going to look for his dad. For him, his dad is lost. A child needs answers."
She emphasized that she welcomes each and every one of the hostages who were released and returned, "but why not my husband? Why did he remain behind?"
"I understand that the humanitarian list was determined on May 27, but more than seven months have passed since then, so I don't know who made the decision and why there were no updates. Elkana and three other fathers should have been added to the list. And now, [all the hostages] who remain in phase two are humanitarian. They are experiencing the worst abuse. We've heard what's happening to them: they are being abused, tied up, and starved. It's incomprehensible, 537 days that he has experienced, flesh and blood, the abuse and hunger."
Therefore, Rivka decided she couldn't "sit at home anymore."
"I can't sit at home anymore. Even with mistakes in Hebrew, in the end, they will understand me, and I'm fighting for my husband. In our last conversation on the morning of the massacre at 7 AM, I told him, 'It's not just missiles, come home,' and he promised he would return. Today I understand that I need to help him fulfill his promise, that he can't do it alone, we need to give him a hand, to ask for help from the media, from the public, from the government to bring him home and everyone."
Last weekend, Elkana marked his 36th birthday, and Rivka, together with his mother Ruchama, spoke at the Hostages Square.
"I thought, how could I send him a birthday message? We heard from those who returned that this is the way to send messages. It was a very moving moment. Despite my Hebrew mistakes, it's a place with lots of energy. The moment you stand in front of so many people who are not related to the hostages and everyone says 'we are with you, you are not alone,' it gives a lot of strength. The unity in the nation is not what happens in the media or government or Knesset, but something completely different."
According to her, she had a feeling or hope that intensifying the struggle and directing the media spotlight on Elkana would cause Hamas to release a video.
"Elkana was in the front, and I thought maybe there would be psychological warfare from Hamas."
Watching the video evoked mixed emotions and concerns for Rivka, especially in light of the difficult and shocking testimonies from those who returned about the cruel captivity conditions and abuse in the tunnels, which they heard firsthand from Ohad Ben Ami, who was with him for most of the captivity period.
The medical analyses of the video raised more speculations about his physical and mental condition.
"It's possible that the significantly low amount of protein in the body causes him to swell or to have a very serious infection in the body and skin, so the captors brought steroids, or the stress, he looks very, very nervous. He never cries. Only twice in my life have I seen him cry, when our child was born and when his grandmother passed away. His motto is 'men don't cry.' And in the video, he's almost falling apart."
Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke to Elkana's mother for the first time
Following the video, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Ruchama Bohbot, Elkana's mother, this week and spoke with her – for the first time since October 7. According to Rivka, no one from the government has spoken with her from then until today.
"He spoke with my mother-in-law and promised he's doing everything, but from words to actions it's… in Spanish they say – derecha – a big step," she says, and expects a meeting with the Prime Minister, to whom she also wants to bring Ram.
When asked what she wants to tell Netanyahu, she replied, "I need to explain to him that I came to a country that I chose to be in, a country that is supposed to protect all its citizens, that was established after World War II to protect all Jews of the world and that the country must save all citizens who were kidnapped, the living and the dead. That's what we'll remember in history. I'm not an expert, but we'll deal with Hamas later.
"The only thing that can't be returned is time. My husband has been 537 days without food and in terrible conditions, not seeing his son grow up, our bed is empty in the morning and cold, he needs the morning and coffee and conversations with mom, the daily routine, life. How much I miss the touch, the hug, sitting at the Shabbat table, being with the child, taking him to kindergarten, that's all I want, just for my husband to be at home."
