‘I’m Asking for Real Help’: Mother of Hamas Hostage Begs U.S. Officials to Secure Son’s Release

The families of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas are happy to have the sympathy of American officials, but more than that, they want action.

It’s been over a month since Hamas invaded Israel, slaughtering 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children and kidnapping another 240, including Doris Liber’s son, Guy Iluz. Liber, an American-Israeli, said Hamas abducted Guy from a music festival near the Re’im kibbutz while he was celebrating the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. Guy, 26, was planning to return home on this particular holiday. She had made him his favorite soup.

“I’m asking for real help, because I need people in powerful places that can be in some kind of communication,” Liber told National Review. “To feel sympathetic is okay, but that’s not enough right now. I need somebody to help out.”

Liber told National Review her son’s story while visiting Washington, D.C., two weeks ago to rally support for the hostages by telling their story to lawmakers and journalists.

When she heard a siren blaring on that October 7 Saturday morning — not an uncommon occurrence in her part of Israel — Liber says she knew that this time, something was different, so she called her son. Guy picked up, saying he and his friends evacuated the festival and that they were en route to Liber’s house. “I could sense in his voice that something was happening,” she said.

Guy has an apartment in Tel Aviv while Liber lives in Ra’anana, which is about a 25-minute drive.

About half an hour later, Guy’s father called Liber and said their son and his friends were in the middle of a terror attack. Liber recalled hearing that one of Guy’s friends, who sat next to her son in the car, was dead. The family hopped on a conference call together, and Guy uttered his last words before being taken.

“We’re not getting out of this alive. Everybody’s dead. I love you daddy. I love you mommy,” he said, according to Liber. The father insisted his son stop talking so he wouldn’t get caught, but Guy continued whispering regardless.

“Guy, I love you. Don’t worry. Stay put. Somebody’s going to get you now,” Liber told her son before hanging up to call the police. That was the last time she heard from him.

Guy’s father drove to the barricaded area near the festival and stayed there all day, Liber said, hoping to reunite with their son. By the time both parents started checking different hospitals searching for Guy, they started to understand the magnitude of the festival shooting and the larger, coordinated attack on Israel.

Now, Guy’s parents just want their son home.

Their chances of reuniting with Guy seemed to improve over the weekend, when the Washington Post reported that Hamas and Israel were nearing a deal to begin releasing hostages. Under the U.S.-brokered deal, both sides would agree to pause combat operations for five days while Hamas began releasing 50 hostages every 24 hours.

The news is likely little consolation for Yonatan and Ido Shamriz, who, unlike Doris Liber, don’t have dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship, and believe their brother Alon Shamriz won’t be prioritized for release as a result.

Yonatan, one of many who witnessed the massacre of friends and neighbors in his Jewish community, lost contact with Alon about 10 a.m. that Saturday morning.

Yonatan and Ido lived in the Kfar Aza kibbutz, about a 35-minute drive from Be’eri, where Alon was last seen in Israel. Both communities are located about a mile or so from the Israel–Gaza border. The two older brothers believe he was loaded onto a truck headed toward the Gaza Strip.

The Shamriz family didn’t know of his abduction at first, so they initially declared Alon missing for ten days. During that time, news of his kidnapping was relayed by one of his neighbors and eventually confirmed by the Israeli military. To this day, the family doesn’t know whether he’s still alive.

“For some families, there is closure now. They know what happened to their loved ones. But for us, we don’t know what happened,” Yonatan told Israeli television channel i24NEWS in October.

“There is so much grief, because there are so many funerals. Many of my friends died, everyone that you knew is dead, or kidnapped, or something else,” he added. “It’s so heartbreaking you can’t even grieve for your own grief. We still have seven funerals a day, and I don’t have the words to express the situation.”

Alon loves computer science and was studying for his college degree before he was taken. Guy bought his first electric guitar at age seven and began working with musicians and bands as he got older.

For now, all their families can do is tell the world their stories — and wait.