Tangle - INTERVIEW: Isaac talks with Alon Gat

Episode Date: July 14, 2024

Isaac got to talk with Alon Gat. He recounts his harrowing experience on October 7th, what happened to him and his family, the current situation, and his hope for the future of Israelis and Palestinians. You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everybody and welcome to the Tangle podcast. We're doing something a little bit different today for this Sunday edition. I'm going to play for you an interview that I conducted this week with a man named Alain Gat. You might be familiar with Alangat or have heard that name before because he has a pretty remarkable story, one that you're about to hear on the podcast and one that has gotten attention from news organizations all across the globe. Alangat was in one of the kibbutzim in Israel on October 7th when Hamas attacked. He was briefly taken into Hamas custody. His wife spent many weeks in Hamas custody as a hostage in Gaza, and his sister is still being held in Gaza. Today, he tells a story about his experience on October 7th about the relationship between members of the kibbutz and Gazan's civilians

before October 7th, some about how his perspective has changed and also about his optimism and hope for the future and what he thinks needs to happen. It's a powerful interview. I think it will be a difficult interview for some people to listen to for various reasons. I think he has very strong opinions about the Israel-Palestine conflict because of what he's experienced. I also think he describes things that are just genuinely horrifying and traumatic, and that is going to be hard for some listeners. So I certainly advise some discretion for those of you who might be listening with children or for people who may be sensitive to certain stories of violence or even rape or sexual

assault or things like that. I do believe that this is a really valuable story to hear, though, because Alain God experienced something that I think is very central to the current state of the conflict and the current war. And I also think he has a powerful message about his family members who were or are currently in captivity and being held hostage in Gaza. So I was honored and privileged to have him on, just like I've been honored and privileged to have on guests in the past to discuss this conflict. We've had Haviv Gur, an Israeli analyst. We've had Yusuf Mineir, a Palestinian activist and writer. We've had Daniel Benora, who is a Palestinian now living in the United States,

who had a really tremendously strong and moving and powerful perspective about this conflict. And as always, we're here trying to elevate a wide range of voices to offer varying perspectives on this. So this is one voice in that group, but it is a rather remarkable firsthand account of some of what happened nine months ago and also where we might go from here. I hope more than anything that you can perhaps learn something about the perspective and insight of people like Alain and also come away with some hope or optimism, which I tried to get out of the conversation toward the end. So without further ado, here is my interview with Alain Gat. Alain Gat, welcome to the Tangle podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Isaac. Thank you for having me.

Before we jump into your story, which I'm not even sure how to describe. I mean, it's an incredibly powerful, moving, crazy story. I would like if maybe we could just start, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, where you grew up. Just a little bit about Alangak before we get to October 7th. All right. So I was born and raised in Kibbutz Benri, which is actually six kilometers away from the border with Gaza. It's in the west part of the country, a bit to the south, one hour away from Tel Aviv. Israel is pretty small, so it's not that far. And I grew up over there in Skibutz. This Skibutz is pretty amazing, and it used to be a paradise. And for me, I felt lucky to grow up over there and and after that when I

was in my 20s I was traveling abroad around the world for a year or two. And then I came back. I did my studies. I'm a tour guide. I used to guide mostly Americans around Israel to show them around Israel and to show them how amazing Israel is. And I done that from, let's say, from around 2014 to 2020. And all that time I lived outside of Kibbutz Berri, all around Israel. And on 2020, I came back with my wife, Fyodel. In 2020, I came back with my wife, Fyodel, and over there in the kibbutz we received, we got our daughter Geffen to realize and we lived there until September 2023.

And for us, it was an amazing place to to raise Geffen to raise our child and on September we decided to leave out of the kibbutz mostly because of the missiles that once in a while were being shot from from Gaza to the area of our kibbutz and because of all the alarms and everything, we thought it's not a good place to raise our kid in. And this is why we decided to leave the kibbutz and to find ourselves somewhere else to live in. So we left the kibbutz on September.

First on September, we went to Giva Time, which is close to Tel Aviv, and we organized ourselves just for a temporary time over there, and then we flew to South Africa for three weeks trip, and we

came back on October 6th. We came back and straight from the airport after organizing ourselves we came to the kibbutz, kibbutz Beril where my parents are and this is we came because for my mother it was really important to celebrate the second holiday over there and we missed the first one the week before so we came we came back to the holiday to celebrate it with my family and this this time my sister came back from India after three months vacation and my brother came back to Israel after walking the States for three weeks. And we all gathered, and my father was there, and we all gathered in my parents' home

to celebrate the holiday. And this was actually the place where we got scattered around. So tell me the story of what happened to you and your family on October 7th. Okay, so after celebrating the holiday on October 6th in the evening, my brother went to a bachelor party on a beach far away from Paris. So he wasn't there at night and in the morning.

But my sister Carmel was there i was there with your then my wife and geffen our daughter three and a half years old back then and with my parents uh ashley my father and kineret my mother um and we went to sleep and i woke up at 6 a.m uh with Carmel because we planned on jogging that morning. So we organized ourselves and at 6.30, the missile started and the alarm started and we all rushed straight to the safe room. I then brought Geffen in and my parents were there as well. And I would say that we kind of got used to it that um we have alarms we get going into rushing into the safe room and after uh 15 minutes we're going out and everything is like normal um but that time it was unusual there was hundreds of rockets uh in no time and it was it was

sounds like crazy I never heard something like that before and we stayed in the safe room and we're getting messages that we need to stay in the safe room from the first response team in the kibbutz that's supposed to handle this kind of this kind of event

and the situation room in the kibbutz just told us, stay in the safe room. It's been taken care of. And that's what all the kibbutz did. And after an hour or so, we got messages that there is terrorists in the kibbutz. And we are in the safe room.

I'm with my daughter, with my wife, with my sister, and with my parents. And we're really not understanding what's going on. We thought maybe it's one or two terrorists that broke into the kibbutz. And now the first response, which is 11 people with guns in the kibbutz, is supposed to protect the kibbutz, will handle it. And the army will come and it will end in an hour. But of course now we know that there were more than 300 terrorists in the kibbutz and many other hundreds of civilians from Gaza that breached into our kibbutz and just done

whatever they like over there. And especially in the neighborhood that my parents lived, that we were in, they just took over our kibbutz. And I just want you to imagine that feeling that your kibbutz, your town, your home is not your home anymore. And that's what we felt back then, even though when we were in the safe room, I didn't really understand what's going on. So we were there for four hours from 6.30 to 10.25 a.m. We were in the safe room getting messages that this house, to this house was terrorists breaking in and for this house it was on fire.

And we are starting to understand that this is something else. But we still, it's like putting a frog in boiling water. It's taking time for you to understand that you need to take care of yourself. Because back then we got all the time messages, just stay in the safe room, stay in the safe room. This is a safe room that's supposed to be against missiles, not against terrorists that are breaking into your kibbutz. So you can't lock the door.

So you can just stay in the safe room and wait for them to come. And in 1025, me and Adam Gasson were in the safe room. My mother and Carmen, my sister, went out to bring some food and water in, and my father went to

his bathroom outside of the safe room. So in that time, exactly in that time, this is when the terrorists broke into the safe room, sorry, into the house of my parents. They just broke the back door. It's a glass door. And I just heard it from the safe room and we are hearing them shouting and

just catching my mother and my sister come out and just shouting at them and telling the mothers in arabic and asking asking them if there is more people there and uh where is the keys for the cars and they were really like uh all around the house and we were silent in the safe room and i didn't know what's going on with my father eventually we know that um he was hiding in his bathroom and from some reason they didn't they didn't enter the the bathroom they just broke the door to his bedroom and then just shot inside through the door to the bathroom. And they hit him in his left side, in his

right side, but miraculously, somehow, he wasn't hurt and he was rescued later on this night. But we were hearing all of that in the safe room and i was trying to put geffen this is the three and a half years old kid and i tried to put her into the closet and close it and then uh she was started she started crying and i took her out and i tried to put her with her then with

my wife underneath the bed in the box underneath the bed. It was too small. So they were just hiding in the corner and I put a blanket on them. And Yarden was trying to calm Geffen. Think about it, trying to calm your three and a half years old kid while there is terrorists in your home. And you know that if she will shout, if she will cry, the tourists will know you're there. And this is the situation that we were in for about 10 minutes. And I was just trying to hide them.

And I just stood in front of the door. I took the bulb out of the lamp just to make sure that it would be dark. And I just stood in front of the door and said, I don't know what I would do when they will enter, but I'm going to stand there and they will take me first. And after 10 minutes, they opened the door and I just kind of shouted myself out. And I told them I'm the only one here. And I just kind of pushed them outside of the safe room. And at the beginning it worked

and they took me outside they tied my hands uh they dragged me outside with my hands after they tied them and put me on the floor on the sidewalk outside and then uh they tied my hand my legs and they dragged me into a private car that they stole from the kibbutz. And I'm there and I'm saying, okay, what's going on? I'm seeing around me dozens of terrorists just doing what they want in my kibbutz. And I'm saying, okay, at least they took only me and your girlfriend for an hour safe in the safe room. only me and Yarden and Geffen for an hour safe in the safe room. But after another 10 or 15 minutes, I don't know exactly, I saw Yarden and Geffen. Yarden is holding Geffen on her hands and they took them also outside to me and into the car and we're trying to convince them don't take Geffen she's

three and a half years old kid you don't have anything to do she doesn't have anything to do with that and just don't take she's a kid don't take her and of course they didn't listen they just jumped here then with Geffen into the car and from there they just drove with us to the place where they broke into the kibbutz just before that they stopped and they brought another guy in which from the kibbutz, civilian from the kibbutz, who also visited his family in the kibbutz his name is Tal Shoham and they just brought him and shoved him into the

trunk of the car and he was there in the trunk and they were trying to leave out of the kibbutz from the place where they broke in and over there they got stuck in a bump for about 5 minutes trying to push the car. And I had like five minutes of looking around, eyeing with my hands and legs tied.

And I'm looking around and I'm seeing only terrorists with guns from Gaza and civilians using it like a highway in and out from the kibbutz, looting, raping, murdering people just back and forth and i i just couldn't believe it's it's happening and next to me was a kid about 12 years old from gaza trying to push a golf cart out of the kibbutz to steal it and he's he saw me in the car and saw you're there and gaffing and i'm sure he saw the bodies before that were next to us just a hundred meters before of people from the kibbutz and I didn't see any empathy in his eyes anything he just didn't care about us about a three and a half years old kid being taken, abducted, and about people getting murdered. He just didn't care.

And I couldn't understand that. I looked in his eyes and I didn't see anything for us. And I didn't tell you that before, but after, when we were still in the safe room, I heard my mother and my sister come in, but after a few minutes, I just didn't hear them anymore, and later on, we found out on that Saturday, we had a telegram from Hamas that showed I didn't see it only when I came back but that showed showed my mother walking in the kibbutz with

her hands tied behind her back with four other people from the kibbutz and they led her to a street corner, just about 50, 100 meters, 300 feet out of her home. And over there, they just shot them. They just brutally murdered them. And this is another video from Hamas that you just see them lying in their own pool of blood. And this is how we found out that my mother was murdered. Just like that. And my sister Carmel, at that time we didn't have any information what happened to her. And we just assumed

that she was abducted. But in that time we we did know. So back to us in the car, they succeeded to go through this bump and succeeded to go out of the Kimberts in this car that we are sitting in the backseat, and there is three armed terrorists next to us and a driver from Gaza, an older guy.

And they're just driving towards Gaza. And me and Yaden are looking at each other and we are saying, they are taking us to Gaza. And we didn't know what to do in that time. We've given on Yaden's lap and we just didn't know what to do. And it was about 20 minutes ride 15 20 minutes ride until we got closer to the border and in this time the terrorists are in their phones are just videoing taking videos of of uh of all the forests are being burned down and the fire around and the terrorists

that's walking around and taking videos of us. And then they said something about Ben Gavir and I was trying to be more, uh, sympathetic to with them. And I said like, uh, like, uh,

fuck Ben Gavir. And they were like, Oh, they were like excited that I, I just said it. And they took video of me saying that. And they were, they were like oh they were like excited that i i just said it and they took video of me saying that and they were they were and they always said like and then they said they were proud they said we are the hamas we are we are as in the al-qasam we are al-qasam always they said like this is the

uh the soldiers of the hamas and they uh and they were so excited about everything that happened. I remind you, they are excited that they just murdered people in the kibbutz. In the kibbutz, we are talking about 101 people that got murdered from Berri only, from a community of 1,100 people. Okay, so 10% were murdered in the kibbutz, and 31 were abducted, just to grasp the magnitude of the events in Kibbutz Beiri. While they were driving closer to the border, we seized an opportunity, 500 meters, 1,500 feet before the border.

We seized an opportunity and we jumped out of the car, me, Aden, and Geffen. Tal was still in the trunk. And Aden jumped with Geffen to the left side and I jumped to the right side of the car. While we were driving I succeeded to release my leg out of the tank and while I was jumping out of the car I succeeded to release my hands as well luckily. And after we got out, after we got up after we jumped out of the car while the terrorists were hiding from a tank

in the Israeli tank in the bushes we were running away to the other side, opposite side of the terrorists and we were just running and then the terrorists started to shoot at us now think about the situation that three armed terrorists are shooting at you from, I don't know, the most 90 feet away.

And Yarden is running with Geffen in her hands. I'm running in front of her to look for us a place to hide. And they are shooting at us and the bullets are getting closer and closer to us and we're just running and then you're then telling me take geffen you can save her they take her with you and she's giving me geffen and i'm running in front of your den with geffen in my hands and i'm feeling the bullets are getting closer and closer to me and it's going to hit me in a second and then i'm looking back and i'm saying you're then about 60 feet away hiding behind the tree because the bullets were really close to here

and in that moment it was a millisecond decision that i decided that I have to be on the move. And I just kept running with Geffen on my hands away from the terrorists while I'm seeing my wife hiding behind a tree closer to them. And I kept running for another 600 feet

until I found a small ditch about about this seat. And I just put Geffen in. And I laid on her. And I just covered myself with dirt and thrown a step forward next to me. And I just told her to shush. Just be quiet.

The bad guys are next to us. And she's asking, where is mommy? And she's asking what the bad guys want to do to us. And I'm telling her we have to be quiet now. And we stayed like that for, it was about 15 minutes that I'm hearing them around looking for us. And I'm thinking, I'm in that time thinking, is your then hurt?

Is she wounded? She's alive. If she got caught by the terrorists, and I really didn't know what to do. And I just stayed with Geffen, protecting her. And after 15-20 minutes,

it was more quiet, so I could tell Geffen that the bad guys want to catch us and that I didn't know where mom is and we stayed there there was more vehicles there was another car passing

after 20 minutes more another car passing just next to us there was a dirt road and then us so it was about 3 feet away a car was passing back and forth a few times Just next to us, there was a dirt road and then us. So it was about three feet away. A car was passing back and forth a few times. And in that time, I just said,

Giffen, you have to be as quiet as you can and don't move. And that's how we stayed for eight and a half hours. We were barefoot, without any food, without any water. And that's how we stayed there until it was dark. And when it was dark, I took Geffen on my back and I walked back to the kibbutz where I got

back the next morning to the soldiers, the Israeli soldiers that were next to the entrance to the kibbutz. But all this time I'm thinking, should I go back with Geffen to the place where I was splitting Yarden? And then I'm saying, no, I can't risk Geffen like that. And my mission now is to save Geffen, to bring her back to safety. And I don't know what's going on with my mother.

I don't know what's going on with Carmel, my sister. And I don't know what's going on with my father. I didn't know where's going on with my sister, and I don't know what's going on with my father. I didn't know where they were rescued. And I just walked back to the kibbutz and from there we drove to, they took us to Tel Aviv and Trioden's parents' home. And later on we discovered that Jordan was recaptured and was in captivity and also Carmel, my sister

and that my mother was murdered and this is the events of the 7th of October for us while as I said many many were murdered in the kibbutz by the terrorists, and many were abducted. Yoden was in captivity for 54 days until she was released in the first humanitarian,

the only humanitarian deal that happened in the end of November. And she was in captivity for two months. But we met her in the hospital and there is a beautiful photo of us so that you can see the smile on Geffen's face when she first hugged her. This is something that I

will try to explain you what that means to get your loved ones back after they were almost, you thought that they were dead. And it's like they were reborn. It's really, it was like getting your then back was getting, it was like a birth, but for someone that you already know.

And it was really amazing to get her back. And this was after 54 days. I really remind you that now we are recording this just after 9 months from when it happened. And my sister Carmel

is in captivity still. About Carmel, we didn't have any information until the hostages, some of the hostages came back in the deal after 50 days. And two of them were two teenagers that were with Carmel. They were abducted from the same place in Bari, and they were entered into the same car. They were taken with the same car, and they passed next to the body of my mother.

So Carmel knows about my mother. She doesn't know anything about us. She just knows that the terrorists murdered, Hamas terrorists murdered my mother. And then they took her to Gaza with them, with the other hostages. And in captivity, they've gone through tough experiences, especially at the beginning. But they were abusing them. but they were abusing them but Carmel

somehow, she's an occupational therapist and she's a caregiver all her life she took care of others, she's taking care of other people and in captivity she succeeded to initiate yoga practices and mindfulness

with the other hostages. And they wrote a diary together to track the days. And this is how they kept their sanity. And Kamel succeeded to lift them up, their spirit up. And after 50 days, they told the two teenagers that they are going to the bathroom. They took them out. They shut the door behind

Kamel with the other terrorists and they were released. But Kamel stayed there by herself. So from day 50, with no idea what's going on with Kamel, I hope she's with other people because this is how she can

lift her spirit up when she's taking care with other people because this is how she can lift her spirit up when she's taking care of other people. It's been way too long that they are in captivity. These are innocent people that were abducted from their beds. They were taken in their pajamas from their beds. And there is no reason why they should stay there in captivity right now. As we speak, they are suffering. Can you tell me a little bit about what your wife said about her experience in Gaza

and what happened to her and how she was treated and what it was like? Because I think we haven't heard many stories from the hostages about what happened to them the ones who have come back um well i won't get into all the details but i can tell you that when you are there, this is what you're then telling me, that when you are there in their hands, it's kind of they are taking your personality out of you, and you are not yourself anymore. Think about what describes you as a person. What is describing you?

And when you're getting up in the morning, who is you? What is describing you? And when you're getting up in the morning, who is you? What is describing you? And all of that, they are taking away from you. They're taking away your name. They are taking away your freedom. You can't do anything. They're always looking at you. You need to calculate everything that you are going to say,

everything that you're going to do. If that's something that will help you survive the night, or is something that will cause them to do something to you or to kill you, because you are in their hands and they can do anything they want to you. You can't resist, you can't do anything. And it's more scary if you are a woman. If you are a woman, it's even more scary. And they not only can do, they are doing to you,

and you have no way to resist. And this is the way that I can describe how it is. Just think about everything they describe you and just erase it. And think about that you don't know if you will survive the next day. And that's not every day you're thinking about it, every second you're thinking about it.

Every second you're suffering there. And now your then is with us and I can tell you that sure she is in a situation that she's acting, she's doing stuff, she's going back to life, she's living, but it will take a lifetime to treat that and to start to understand what's going on over there. And she was there only, I'm saying that, but it's only 54 days. Now we are talking more than nine months. Now, nine months, think about it.

When I'm saying nine months, it's something that, yeah, you said, okay, it's nine months. But think about it. From the day you, it's more than the time that you think that you're going to have a baby. When your wife telling you that, yeah, we are pregnant and we're going to have a baby. This is more than that. Think about all this time that you waited, that you were expecting for this baby. This is the time that I'm expecting for my sister, Kamel, to be with me. That I'm expecting to give her the hug that I gave her then when she came back, when Geffen gave her then when she came back, think about the hug that you gave to your partner today, about to your friends that you're going to give them tomorrow. This is the hug that I'm expecting to get for nine months.

And this is the hug that Carmel is expecting to get for nine months. She's not getting hugs over there she's not getting love she's not getting coffee she's not getting real food i don't know what kind of water she's getting she's not getting medical care and this is someone that when they will be released, this is someone that will have a life, that will walk beside us and will be part of us. And this is a human being that needs to be released from this nightmare, from this horrible place that terrorists are holding here now.

This is not only terrorists, this is Hamas terrorist organization that some people think of as a legitimate organization for free Palestine. But this is, they want only to destroy Israel. And I will tell you something that Jordan heard from them, that they were telling her when she was in captivity. They told her, one of the terrorists that guarded her was with a second degree in law. Okay? And he told her that Israel was only the beginning. And the rest of the free world is next this is from a guy with an with an uh ma in law that's standing here so this is their belief this is their wish to take over all of the free world. And Israel is only the beginning.

So if you think that what we are talking now is only about my sister, Kamel, so it's much bigger than that. To free the hostages is not only for freeing the hostages. It's to telling these horrible people that we are not willing to accept that that innocent people are being abducted and that you can do whatever you want in Israel in all over the world because this is what they are doing and the one is now in charge over there is one guy his name name is Yixin Wang. Or how the Palestinians

are calling him the butcher of Han Yunus. Because he is the one killing Palestinians. So they are calling him the butcher of Han Yunus. And this is the guy that can stop it in a second. He can say, I'm agreeing to a deal.

It's now on the table. And he's not doing that can stop it in a second. He can say, I'm agreeing to a deal that's now on the table. And he's not doing that. And he's building tunnels. He built tunnels underneath the ground to protect the Hamas people, not to protect the civilians, to protect the terrorists, and to hold the hostages over there. terrorists and to hold the hostages over there. So the money that Hamas got from Israel, from Qatar, from other countries,

was being used to build tunnels for them and not for building buildings for the civilians. And they are, Yichit Sinwar is now taking hostage not only the hostages from Israel but also the Palestinians this is what you need to understand it, we need to put more pressure on Hamas and on

the mediators that will push Hamas for releasing the hostages and for end this war. This is the way to end this war, to release the hostages. That's it. And it will be a ceasefire, and that's it. We are fighting to release our civilians that were kidnapped from their beds.

This is the reason why we are fighting now. This is why I'm fighting now. is the reason why we are fighting now. This is why I'm fighting now. I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the relationship members of the kibbutz had with Gazans before October 7th. Because one of the things that's interesting about your kibbutz, based on what I know about it, is that there seemed to be quite a bit of connectivity or, you know, working together across border relationships at the time. I'm interested if you could talk a little bit about what that was like before October 7th. Sure, because this is part of the people that were murdered, their legacy. So in my kibbutz, I would say that we are in the left wing in Israel, and there are many peace activists in the kibbutz,

and many people that, for example, we had workers from Gaza that worked for years, years in Be'eri until a few years ago. And we were in good connection with those families. And we were giving them money every year. Or the kibbutz gathered money and sent the money to them every year. I donated money to those families every year, because this is a family that we knew for many, many years. And many people in the kibbutz, for example, like Vivian Silver, the mother of a friend of mine who migrated to the kibbutz, that lived just a few houses away from my parents.

She was murdered in 7th of October. And just the week before, in the weeks before, she was acting for peace with Palestine and was driving, many people were driving sick people from Gaza to getting treatment in the hospital in Israel. So they were helping them and driving them to those hospitals. So many people in the kibbutz were helping the Palestinians from Gaza. And this is something that many in the kibbutz now don't know really how to approach because I saw it in my own eyes.

There were civilians that were in the kibbutz, many hundreds of civilians that were in the kibbutz looting, raping, killing people, murdering people from Berri. for murdering people from Be'er. So this is really a unique situation that I don't know how to approach it right now because I feel like we were betrayed, not only deserted by Israel because the army wasn't there to protect us. And we were, I can say that now we feel really bad about the Palestinians as well that were part of this

7th of October events that were in the Rih. The terrorists in the kih and doing they got the terrorists in the kibbutz knew exactly how the kibbutz where is all the how the kibbutz

is being built and where is the kindergartens and where is the the houses where is the dining hall and where is everything

they knew exactly what they were doing they were planned. And they got this information from people. So we really, I can't understand now how to approach it. But I can tell you that I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic about the situation because I know that Biden now is pushing

hard on this deal on the table right now and it will be delivered and it will be, the deal will happen. But we need more pressure from Biden on the mediators on Hamas for that deal to be delivered. But it will happen. We just need more people to push

on the American government and on, it can be on Israel as well but now the one that's not accepting to the deal is that is making always excuses is not only in Israel it's all it's mostly if you've seen what in Hamas so we need for more pressure over there on Hamas, and this deal will happen. And the hostages will be out, and there will be a ceasefire. We just need to make sure that Hamas is not the one controlling Gaza afterwards, because it will happen again if Hamas will stay in control. I'm curious if you could maybe talk a little bit about that optimism.

Before we get out of here, I think that's an important thing to key in on is also kind of that future-looking attitude that you just talked about. I mean, let's assume this deal goes through, we get a hostage deal, and we bring home the hostages, and we see that there's a ceasefire, and the global community has to move towards the next step. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you think the future might hold. I mean, how does Israel and how do Palestinians find peace after everything that's happened? I mean, you know, for the, your story of October 7th is remarkable and I think unique and harrowing. remarkable and I think unique and harrowing. And in the last nine months, there are many families in Gaza who have lived kind of a similar horror too,

where they've lost family members. And I don't know where we go from here, I guess. And I'm curious, as someone who has experienced this, what you think the future could look like. Well, in a nutshell, I can tell you that, I don't know, I can assume that, well, I'm optimistic in my nature. And even though I've gone through all these experiences, I think we can achieve, I don't know if peace, but a situation that we can leave one next to the other here in the Middle East.

But we just need the citizens from all sides to not go for the radicals. And this is what happens all around the world, by the way. But in Israel and in Palestine, and let's say specific in Gaza, Hamas was elected in a democratic way in 2007. And still the support that they have in the Palestinian society is still high. And this is something that when they are thinking like that, I can't believe that we can achieve something real right now but if the education will change and if

there will be a future that you can see from both sides it can happen but this can happen only if there will be a grand plan it can't happen if we need help

from America but also from all the world. And we need this grand plan with Saudi Arabia that will help us, and with other countries that will help support the Gazians, and also us, because we can't allow Hamas, the terrorist organization that murdered my mother, that kidnapped my wife, that kidnapped Kamel, my sister, and still holding her. I can't allow them to be in control because they will do the same. They are saying right now that they will do the same they are they are saying right now that they will do it again so so i can't allow them to stay in control because it will happen again and by the

way it won't happen only in israel it can happen next holiday in in the states because we are not stopping this this radicalism and now we are are always thinking that we are confusing liberalism with radicalism always. And we're saying, yeah, this is only, we need them. We are liberals and we want them to be in peace and we need to let them, if this is their opinion, just let them. But no, this is radical radicalism and this is something that destroying us from inside um and we need we need to change that and we need education we need the support and it will take years it won't be it won't be a happy ending in a year or two. It will take 10, 20 years, but we need to start thinking about

it because if we won't think about it, there is no chance it will happen. Alain Gat, thank you for coming on and sharing your story. Obviously wishing that your sister is released soon and all the hostages are brought home and we see a ceasefire and hopefully an end to this war and the violence in the near future. But I very much appreciate you sharing your story with us. Thank you so much. And if I can just add one thing, because I really appreciate everything that you are doing and the listeners that are listening to this podcast. And I just want to use this platform and to ask from everyone that's hearing this podcast. Please press Biden to press Hamas to get into a deal that will release my sister. Because she can be with me in two weeks from now.

I can hug my sister in two weeks if this deal will happen. Alain Gat, thank you so much. Thank you.