Southern Israel – Before the Jewish New Year holiday, Rosh Hashanah, Efrat Machikawa helped prepare food for dinner at her home in southern Israel. Her family eats Tunisian food to mark the occasion, and her mother has prepared a number of delicacies, including honey-glazed spinach.
But Machikawa told CBS News that this year’s holiday – one of the most important in Judaism – would not be the celebration it usually is, because one of his family members is still being held hostage in War-torn Gaza.
“We know it’s a holiday, but there’s nothing to celebrate. Nothing,” she said. “They should have been here.”
CBS News last visited Machikawa at her home in southern Israel nearly a year ago, just days after Hamas launched attacks on October 7. Six members of his family had just been killed or taken hostage in their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz, among the 1,200 people massacred and 251 kidnapped that day.
Duarte Dias/CBS News
“It’s very difficult to describe the past year, because it really doesn’t feel like a year…I say, it’s a long day,” Machikawa said.
One of his relatives was killed and four were eventually released by Hamas, including his aunt Margalitwho had serious health problems at the time of his kidnapping.
Finally released from captivity, Margalit struggled to accept what had happened on October 7.
IDF via AP
“It was not easy for her to realize what had really happened to her home, to her community, to her friends, to the people she loved, to the other kibbutzim, to the entire country,” Machikawa said.
Since we last met, she has been working tirelessly to bring home her uncle Gadi Moses, the last member of the family still detained in Gaza.
She is part of the families and friends of the hostages put pressure on the Israeli government to accept a deal with Hamas for a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Machikawa has traveled the world, calling on foreign leaders to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Maya Alleruzzo/AP
“Everyone who is connected to the negotiating table and to the army – the security and the army – are extraordinary, extraordinary people. But if I talk about my government… I don’t think they did what “What’s a government, what’s my idea of government, would do the trick,” Machikawa said. “It is quite difficult to feel that it is up to us, the families, to maintain the national and international interest in freeing these 101 hostages.”
Israeli officials estimate that 64 of the hostages are still alive.
Machikawa said that despite the difficulties, she would continue to work to bring her uncle and the other hostages home.
“There has to be hope. I’m hopeful,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to not hope. I don’t have the capacity not to hope.”
