As Israel Confronts the Islamic Republic, Hostage Families Like Mine Are Still Paying the Price

Early Sunday morning I awoke to the shrill alert of Israel’s Home Front Command blaring from my phone, warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack and urging me to take shelter immediately. Before I could wipe the sleep from my eyes, I hurried downstairs to the mamad—one of several Hebrew words meaning “protected space.” Moments later, the thunderclap of interceptions boomed overhead so loudly I could feel each one in my chest.

I am an Israeli-American visiting my family in Tel Aviv, as I do every year. Unlike them, I had the privilege of being born and raised in the United States where I live freely without the pangs of fear from warfare —until now. Today, I find myself in the middle of a war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. While we slept, the United States Air Force carried out precision strikes, dropping 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on three nuclear sites in Iran, aiming to cripple its nuclear program. In retaliation, the extremist regime fired yet another barrage of ballistic missiles at major cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa. 

Yet under the cover of war, in a heart-stopping moment like this, I can’t help but question: is this what it really means to be protected? 

The shelters where we now huddle have been a mandatory feature of Israel’s architecture since 1993. They are built standard in new homes, dot public spaces and pastoral communities, line major roads, and sit beside schoolyards. Some are even painted with colorful murals, as if a coat of paint could disguise their purpose. Constructed of reinforced concrete and usually sealed with steel doors, they are designed to withstand the impact and blast of rocket and missile fire. These protected spaces are omnipresent both in the physical world around us and embedded within the Israeli psyche. They serve as a constant reminder of an existential threat from some of our neighbors—and of the promise this country made to its citizens.

For many Israelis, that promise was shattered twenty months ago during Hamas’s barbaric attack on October 7, 2023, when the terror proxy breached the border and murdered more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 240 including six members of my own family.

On that dark morning, my cousin Sharon Alony Cunio, her husband David Cunio, and their three year old twin daughters, Emma and Yuli, along with my cousin Danielle Alony and her five year old daughter, Amelia, were abducted from their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz. A devastating security failure on the part of the Israeli government allowed Hamas to breach the border and tear through the communities in the Gaza envelope. My family hid for several hours in a safe room much like the one where I now take cover. The terrorists rampaged through the kibbutz and set their house ablaze causing the room to fill with smoke leaving my cousins to face an impossible choice: die from suffocation or leave the safe room and risk being shot or abducted. When they finally emerged, they were loaded onto tractors by militants at gunpoint and taken hostage to Gaza.

In captivity, their conditions were dire: rations were so meager that some days they received only a quarter of a pita and crumbs of feta; there was no access to medical care or basic hygiene; the children cried from hunger and used a sink or garbage can as toilets. Each day was filled with the terror of random execution, compounded by the thunder of Israeli bombardments overhead.

After two months of captivity and the start of a devastating war in Gaza, a temporary ceasefire was finally struck. Sharon, Danielle, and their children were released, but Sharon and the twins had to leave David behind in a moment my cousin describes as her most devastating. David and his brother Ariel still remain held hostage by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Upon returning home, they were met with another blow. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition set aside the plight of hostage families to hold onto their seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and continue a military operation that has taken thousands of Palestinian lives. Every day since has been a battle to get the government to prioritize the return of the hostages, despite consistent polling that proves 70% of Israeli society supports ending the war to bring them home. 

Instead, the conflict has widened to a new front with the Islamic Republic of Iran, aided by direct U.S. military support, further eclipsing the plight of hostage families and Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are desperate for a diplomatic solution.

It’s been hard to find the right words to articulate the battle between hope and horror that swirls within me. On one hand, I recognize the value of a military operation that dismantles Iran’s nuclear capabilities and weakens an oppressive regime—one that tortures its own people and chants “Death to Israel, Death to America.” There is the possibility, however slim, for regime change or even a diplomatic agreement that could lead to a better future for the region. But on the other hand, the lives of the hostages—and so many innocent people across the Middle East—hang in the balance, caught between unpredictable and politically motivated powers. After so many months of fear and abandonment by the Israeli government, it’s hard to place faith in the empty words offered by those in power.

The Islamic Republic enables Hamas, which still holds my family and 48 others captive. As long as this regime stands, peace in the Middle East will remain out of reach. It exports terror through proxy groups and thrives on conflict that keeps civilians—Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Yemeni—trapped in endless cycles of war. Until the Islamic regime in Iran stops arming and funding these groups, families like mine will continue to pay the price of global inaction.

My cousin Sharon and her twins Emma and Yuli, now almost five years old, no longer know the feeling of a “protected space.” They sleep together in one bed and long for David’s return, all while enduring the daily missile attacks and the ensuing safe room hideouts that retraumatize them again and again.

Earlier this week, Yuli turned to Sharon and said, “Mom, it’s a shame your room isn’t the mamad.” Sharon replied, “True, but you need a special strong door and very strong walls.” Without missing a beat, Yuli asked, “Do you think when Dad comes back from Gaza he can build us a door like that, but for the whole house?”

That instinct is a grim reality for Yuli and Emma, for my whole family, and for so many Israelis today. As we face these days of unbearable uncertainty, we only hope that it brings us closer to the promise we long for.