Hamas militants kidnapped Yechti Yehoud's daughter Arbel from the Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7, 2023. DW's Jan-Philipp Scholz met with Yechti in Jerusalem as talks for a ceasefire in Gaza seem to be gaining momentum.
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00:00Yehudi Yehud has been waiting for 14 months to hold his daughter in his arms again.
00:05Arbol has already spent one birthday held hostage in Gaza.
00:09Now, political insiders say, the chances of a deal are better than they have been for a long time.
00:15Don't wait even one day.
00:17Every day that passed, one more hostages, we die.
00:22One more hostages, we be tortured.
00:25So what you are waiting for?
00:27What you are waiting for?
00:30On October 7th, 2023, terrorists raided Arbol's hometown of near Oz and devastated the kibbutz.
00:37They then kidnapped Arbol along with her partner and around 80 other residents.
00:43Before her kidnapping, Arbol always tried to be there for everyone, her father says.
00:49He hopes that this also helps her in captivity.
00:52The terrorists, maybe they can see the personality of her, the pure personality of her, that she's,
01:05she has a pure heart, you know, she loves everybody, she accepts everybody.
01:10So I hope that they don't torture her.
01:16I hope.
01:19In recent weeks, the hostage negotiations have intensified again, also due to pressure from many families.
01:26Security expert Noam Timon says an agreement is the only chance to save their lives.
01:33Jewish people.
01:34All the military effort, we killed near hostages, then we brought back.
01:41The only real option to bring them all is a hostage deal.
01:46And this is what we should do right now.
01:50Arbol is also a German citizen, her father says.
01:54She is the great-granddaughter of a painter from Hamburg.
01:57Yeshti has met many German politicians, but is disappointed by their lack of action.
02:03I need them to force more the government in Israel, not just for our relatives,
02:08not just for the hostages, also for the people in Gaza, people not terrorists,
02:13but people, they've been killed, it's broken our heart, you know.
02:18They are people like us.
02:23Arbol's grandmother, Hannah, is also helping with the campaign for Arbol's release.
02:28Hannah was born shortly before the Holocaust.
02:31Perhaps the family hopes Germany can help save her granddaughter's life two generations later.