I remember those first days of the war when we decided on something simple and relentless, a ritual the country could wake up to. Every morning, we would publish one hostage’s headshot, along with their name, age, and where they were taken from.
If space allowed, we added a detail or two. The list kept growing, agonizingly, because so many were still “missing” for what felt like forever.
What now feels like a decade ago, editors from abroad asked to join. Welt in Germany was among the first, and we shared everything we had, images and information, so the names would echo beyond Israel.
We kept going for two years. We updated the list as reality forced us to, sometimes because a hostage had been killed in captivity, which we stated plainly, and sometimes, thank God, because someone had come home.
The list shrank, then grew, then shrank again. Once, a name was removed because IDF soldiers found a body. A precious few were rescued, including Noa Argamani, who became one of the faces of this war.
This week, we removed 20 names of living hostages, people we had not seen or heard from since the day they were taken. Nine bodies were returned to Israel as well. By press time, one of them was Nepali student Bipin Joshi.
One evening, a night editor asked me, “Are we still doing the hostage profile on page one?” I had not thought about it until he said it. Of course, we are. We will continue, even as the number has dropped, for now, to 19.
Throughout these two years, every morning on Army Radio, one of the anchors read the name of the hostage on our cover. On the few mornings when design or a special project displaced the daily portrait, we dedicated the front page to a specific incident related to the October 7 massacre and the hostages, and listeners noticed. They asked if we had stopped. We have not, and we will not.
Frontpages from two years of war
There were front pages we will never forget. During the first half year, we commemorated the fallen with a white Star of David, the rest of the page filled with names.
On October 7, 2024, we ran a blank front page with a single line: “One year on, words still fail to capture this day.”
At 300 days, we ran a yellow-toned image of IDF soldiers and quoted our national anthem: “Our hope is not lost.”
On Day 668, we showed Evyatar David, emaciated and forced by Hamas terrorists to dig his own grave, a photograph that looked like it had been taken in Europe in the 1940s.
On International Women’s Day, we dedicated the cover to the female hostages, with the headline: “Nothing to celebrate until they are free.”
And at four months, we wrote: “Bring them home” in English and Arabic.
We at The Jerusalem Post, as Israelis, as Zionists, as Jews, felt a duty to keep the hostage story centered. We still do. Yet there is an odd sensation in the streets, a feeling among many Israelis, including some of us, that the war is almost over or already behind us.
This week in cities and towns, people pulled down posters of hostages who have come back, most alive, some not. Other displays are falling apart on their own, weathered by two winters and too many winds.
One of our copy editors, Fern Allen, had a wonderful idea: Someone should document these works of solidarity and hope before they vanish. So much creativity and emotion went into them, and they may soon be gone, because, with God’s help, they will no longer be needed.
Monday was one of those whiplash days that define Israeli news. US President Donald Trump arrived for a brief visit, and as he spoke in the Knesset, 20 living hostages were on their way home.
Our brains and fingers split in a dozen directions at once. It was a happy day, a day some of us feared would never come, and also a difficult, dramatic day.
These 20 people, whose faces and stories we know by heart, became people again, not icons. All of this unfolded as Israel prepared for Simchat Torah, the same holiday Israelis were celebrating when the war began two years ago.
Wow. They are actually home.
We marked the moment with covers. A week ago, we published a silhouette of Trump, and inside it we placed the faces of the remaining hostages, then 48. The line read: “He is bringing them home.”
That front page went viral. The president shared it, and so did the White House. A close friend told me she disliked it and said we should have put an IDF soldier on the cover, because the soldiers are the ones bringing them home.
I do not see a contradiction. We should honor the soldiers, and we do, and we will. But sometimes we also need to engage the people who can move events in Israel’s favor.
Praising them, sparingly and at the right moment, can be an instrument of policy. If a leader who thrives on attention can be nudged to keep doing the right thing for Israel, then a powerful front page is a small price to pay.
We also thanked the people whose names will not appear on a poster. Credit belongs to the president’s team, to Jared Kushner, to Steve Witkoff, and yes, first and foremost, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This newspaper has criticized him often over the past two years, and we will again when needed. We have also noted when he succeeds and taken steps we support.
Credit is due as well to Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, another frequent target of our criticism, because in moments like this, the chemistry and the trust among a tight group matter.
On Monday, we ran another special cover, in cooperation with the World Jewish Congress and its Israel chairman, Canadian-Israeli philanthropist Sylvan Adams. It was a striking portrait of the president with the headline “God bless the peacemaker” in red, white, and blue.
Tens of millions saw and shared that image. Celebrities, news outlets, heads of state – it traveled everywhere. It took a leader with enough chutzpah and creativity, like Adams, to help make a cover like that happen.
What will the next special cover be, and when will it arrive? I cannot say. I hope it is a celebration, a new country joining the Abraham Accords, the rebuilding of this country, something that looks forward rather than back.
After two years of counting days, names, and faces, I am ready to be surprised by good news.