Nearly 500 days after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that shattered their world, cultural diplomat turned activist Efrat Machikawa’s family gathered for a long-awaited moment. Her uncle, 80-year-old Gadi Moses, was finally returning home.
Moses was among 25 Israeli hostages released alive since a truce pact between Israel and Hamas came into effect on Jan. 19. Of the at least 252 hostages taken during the 2023 assault, 63 remain in the Gaza Strip as of Monday, around half of whom the Israeli government believes to be dead.
"My heart was beating out of my chest and, before I knew it, I was running to him — like a little girl racing into the arms of her strong, wonderful uncle. It was a fleeting moment of innocence, a love beyond words.
"His first words to me were 'I am alive. I am normal.' It was as if he knew that I was so scared they might have broken his soul. But they hadn’t," said Machikawa in an interview.
Moses had spent months in captivity, after being taken from Nir Oz in southern Israel before being released late last month. When Hamas militants stormed the intentional agricultural community — known in Israel as a kibbutz — they killed and kidnapped a quarter of its 400 residents, including six members of Machikawa’s immediate family. One of the six — her uncle’s partner — was killed.
An expert in water management and crops such as potatoes, carrots, and peanuts, agronomist Moses had worked with Palestinians who came to Israel, as well as Jordanians and Egyptians, for decades. In captivity, he lost 15 kilograms and spent most of his time confined to a 5-meter-by-5-meter room. He wasn’t allowed to see sunlight, speak or even whisper.
"Gadi is a natural storyteller," Machikawa said. "When he came home, we gathered at my parents’ house to hear him speak. We toasted 'for life.' But our joy was incomplete, knowing that so many are still suffering."
Despite the months of confinement, Moses told his captors upon his release that when peace came, he would return to teach them about agriculture, to help "rebuild and bring prosperity to Palestine."
For Machikawa, the trauma of the day of the attack still lingers.
She remembers being jolted awake by her 23-year-old daughter in the early hours of the morning. Their home, just 30 minutes from the Gaza Strip, was suddenly at the center of war.
"I can’t express how awful it sounded," she said. "It was war, pure war. The entire day disappeared into a black hole as we ran back and forth to the shelter, glued to the phone, checking on our family and following the news."
That morning, Hamas launched an attack that left approximately 1,200 people dead, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
In response, Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 48,219 people in Gaza, according to figures released by the United Nations Palestinian relief agency earlier this month.
Machikawa later learned that in addition to the Hamas fighters who stormed Nir Oz, more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians from a village 5 kilometers away had also invaded, looting homes.
In the immediate aftermath, she said, there was no help. "At first, our government was paralyzed. Not one soldier came," she said. "We had to help each other. In times of natural disasters in Japan, you hear the word tasukeai — mutual aid. That’s what we did. We had no other choice."
Machikawa’s ties to Japan run deep.
At 20, she moved to Tokyo after being captivated by ukiyo-e art books in her childhood home. She spent 22 years working in cultural diplomacy, during which she married a Japanese man and had three children before returning to Israel in 2011.
She came back alone for work between 2021 and 2023. Then, she put her career on hold to focus on efforts toward ending the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Machikawa has dedicated herself to diplomacy and humanitarian efforts, addressing the U.S. Congress and the United Nations. One of her most urgent projects came just days after the attack.
“We quickly realized many elderly hostages had chronic illnesses,” she said. “I led a civil initiative to send medicine to Gaza — not just for the kidnapped Israelis but also for Palestinian children with cancer who were also no longer able to access treatment facilities.
"We know Palestinian children received the medicine," she said. "But no hostage has confirmed getting theirs. Still, we did what we had to do — because if we wanted others to care for our people, we had to care for others, too."
For Machikawa, the search for peace is complicated. "We have to be more politically involved and less innocent. We have to understand that together we should fight extremism wherever it is," she said.
"People protest and call for peace without really understanding the actual danger of what unpeaceful people can do," she added.
To her, tangible actions, demonstrations and dialogues with both parties are the path forward.
“Education, cultural diplomacy and mutual understanding are crucial to breaking the cycle of violence on all sides," she said. "This conflict cannot be resolved until every single hostage is returned home."
One of the real dangers for achieving peace and resolution, she said, is the steady normalization of war and violence.
"I want security for all. A world where no one needs a bomb shelter in their home. I want respect for all life, Israeli and Palestinian alike. We need to overcome the pain and understand that war takes us nowhere. Instead of funding conflict, we should invest in a better Earth. After all, we are all citizens of the world."
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