Cassidy Oberfeld, 28, grew up in Reisterstown and has lived in Tel Aviv for six years. While visiting relatives in Baltimore recently, she spoke with the Baltimore Jewish Times about the surprise rescue of four Israeli hostages held by Hamas and the latest attempts to broker a cease-fire in Gaza.
How did you react when you first heard the four hostages had been rescued in Gaza?
I was sobbing, I’ve never cried so hard. We haven’t had any hope for eight months, so it was an amazing feeling. And sure, in that moment, I didn’t think about the civilians who were killed, but in that second, I thought about those four people. We’ve been waiting for them, and every week, we go to Hostage Square [in Tel Aviv] and think about them. We hear from their parents and their families, and it’s just a pain I can’t imagine. I hope we have more stories like that. I’m not sure we will.
How skeptical are you of yet another proposed deal to broker a cease-fire in Gaza?
I have hope. I think that at the end of the day, a diplomatic solution, a cease-fire agreement is really the only way we’re going to get the 120 people that are rotting away in Gaza. There’s no way to get them back. In a military extraction, they got four people out of the entire intelligence and police and army. We understand force is not going to stop this. There has to be a diplomatic solution, but it seems very, very, very unlikely with the current state of things, with the power that Hamas gets with the international community, because we don’t trust anything that they say.
How do you view Hamas’ strategy of hiding Israeli hostages in residential areas throughout Gaza?
It’s a horrible, horrible, disgusting situation. These four hostages were being held in the most densely populated civilian area in Rafah, where everybody said eyes [on] Rafah … don’t touch Rafah. No, there’s a reason, because this is where they’re being held. It’s a strategy, a disgusting strategy, and the goal is for as many women and children to be killed, to make the IDF look like an evil entity in the media.
Do you feel most Israelis remain deeply divided over Prime Minister Netanyahu and his handling of the war in Gaza?
Most people I talk to say he’s not good for us, this happened under his watch, something’s wrong. We don’t know exactly how culpable he is for what happened, but we do know that he’s not handling the situation, but maybe it’s not the time to go ahead and try to overhaul the government and have elections. It’s hard to do in the middle of a war like this.
