NIR OZ, Israel — Irena Tati and her daughter Yelena Trupanov spent more than seven weeks in Hamas captivity in Gaza, and just over a week after they were freed they returned to survey the wreckage of the burned-out kibbutz that had been their home.
Ordinarily, the residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz would be lighting candles Thursday for the first night of Hanukkah.
But there are few residents around, the communal dining hall is riddled with bullet holes, and the kitchen is burned out.
The only thing Tati, 73, is thinking about is the return of her grandson Sasha, still held by Hamas in Gaza. While she is holding out hope, there are no immediate signs that the hostage negotiations that cleared the way for her release will resume.
“Now, Hanukkah is a holiday of light and joy, and I am waiting for war to end on such a holiday,” Tati told NBC News. “And people close to us in Gaza must return home.”
Tati looked around wearily as she stepped lightly over patches of debris and rubble as she walked past the destroyed houses of her Nir Oz neighbors.
While her own home remained remarkably intact, the houses to either side of hers had been reduced to uninhabitable ruins. Her house has no electricity, and it is dusty from two months of neglect, but it’s still standing.
And, more important to Tati, her cat, Gome, was there, too, crawling over from inside the house to curl around her feet.
“I’m afraid she’s dead, but she’s here,” Tati said before she laid out trays of food and water in the grass.
Trupanov and Tati, both dual citizens of Israel and Russia, spent 53 days in Gaza before they were freed on Nov. 29, along with 10 other Israeli hostages and four Thai nationals.
Neither Trupanov nor Tati would speak about their time in captivity.
