Meet the Volunteers Behind the Hostages and Missing Families Forum

A global campaign featuring stark visual protests has been launched to advocate for 241 individuals abducted by Hamas in Israel

Two hundred and forty-one empty places set for Sabbath dinner in Times Square; 30 empty baby strollers standing idle in a square in London; blindfolded teddy bears with photos of kidnapped children in Berlin; and the shoes of 241 hostages outside the United Nations headquarters in New York.

A mother and daughter walk among an installation of blindfolded teddy bears meant to bring attention to the plight of the approximately 30 children who are believed to be among the hostages currently held by Hamas in Gaza, Nov. 1, 2023 in Berlin, Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

These are the images that have become synonymous with the black, red, and white posters showcasing the faces of those being held captive, perhaps hidden beneath the surface of the dusty streets of the Gaza Strip. The Media Line went behind the scenes of the organization that spawned the global campaign, having popped up overnight after 240 hostages were abducted from Israeli communities along the border with Gaza.

The posters of the faces of the kidnapped hostages have become the symbol of a worldwide campaign to free the abducted, and behind this effort lies a massive operation that takes place at the headquarters of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

From two floors in a Tel Aviv office building, a team of selfless volunteers is dedicated to assisting the families of those abducted and bringing the missing home.

“Basically, we used a few hundred years of accumulative experience plus some know-how and an especially rich contact list that we each have, and we put it to the service of this forum,” Daniel Shek, former diplomat and head of the diplomatic department at Families of the Hostages and the Missing Forum, told The Media Line.

In a single month, the organization has reached countries throughout the world, Shek added, noting that there are headquarters of the Forum already in about 40 countries.

The current No. 1 priority is freeing the hostages, which is something that I and the forum won’t take credit for, entirely or exclusively, but I do think that we have contributed very much to that

Locally, he continued, there have been several achievements as well. “The fact is that in Israeli public opinion, as polls show, the current No. 1 priority is freeing the hostages, which is something that I and the forum won’t take credit for, entirely or exclusively, but I do think that we have contributed very much to that,” said Shek.

After the terrors of October 7, Dudi Zalmanovich, a prominent Israeli businessman whose daughter survived the massacre at the Nova festival and whose nephew was taken captive by Hamas, emptied two floors of his office and gave birth to the forum.

“He made a few phone calls and in a typically Israeli manner, 48 hours later, there were hundreds of volunteers who just showed up,” Shek said.

Yuval Peretz is one of them. Currently, she is serving as the head of the foreign media team of the organization.

“I just showed up at the headquarters and asked what I could help with,” Peretz told The Media Line. “There were people that I knew from my past who knew that I had experience in media, so they asked me to help out on the foreign media team, and it just went on from there, and I have not left the headquarters since,” she added.

Shek, who is volunteering too, is a high-profile former diplomat who showed up to help solve one problem related to his field of knowledge. Since then, he has stayed with the organization and created its diplomatic branch. He immediately recruited over a dozen former ambassadors with connections all over the world. In the same manner, top people in every field have become involved and have used their professional know-how for the same purpose.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has created a number of sectors addressing the many needs that these tortured families are facing.

According to Shek, there is a legal department, a medical department, a PR department, a media strategy department, social workers, and volunteer groups who are there to support the families. “In each of these professional clusters, you have outstanding professionals, really the best. Some of them, like myself, are retired or former professionals. But in many cases, people just stopped their careers and devoted themselves completely to this project,” Shek said.

There is nothing else that matters or that I can be spending my time on. … Anything that is not doing everything in my power to bring the hostages back feels like a waste of time.

Peretz expressed feeling like she cannot go on with her life before the kidnapped come back home. “There is nothing else that matters or that I can be spending my time on. Going to work, to my normal day job, feels silly. Seeing friends feels silly. Anything that is not doing everything in my power to bring the hostages back feels like a waste of time,” she said.

Along with Shek and Peretz, the forum counts about 1,500 volunteers.

“This place is pretty chaotic,” said Shek. “There is no methodology; there is no very clear hierarchy because it is fueled by goodwill and empathy, and by optimism,” he added.

In terms of funding, he said that it is only based on private donations. “There have been a few generous people who are supporting us. This whole operation is 100% volunteers; nobody is paid here, and all the expenses are based on private or corporate donations.”

One of the forum’s main objectives is to remind the world that these hostages are normal people who were randomly and brutally abducted by a terror organization.

According to Shek, it is important to break them down into 241 individual stories and make the world understand that these are human beings ranging from the age of 10 months to 87 years old.

Elinor Ohayon’s family has been terribly affected by the events of October 7. “My aunt was murdered on the 7th of October, living in Be’eri by herself, and my cousin Gali was taken. Her brother, who was with her, was also murdered, and her father managed to escape,” she told The Media Line.

Gali, Ohayon added, “was with her father and with her brother, and they [the terrorists] shot them through the door and through the windows. The brother got hit and lost consciousness, and when they [the terrorists] burned the house, Gali opened the window and ran outside. Her father chased after her, and when they started running because they [the terrorists] were shooting at them, the two separated.”

A few days ago, it was determined that 13-year-old Gali was kidnapped.

“We were waiting for over three weeks just to hear that she had not been killed, and now all we know is that she is in Gaza by herself,” Ohayon said.

Matan Eshet holding a picture of his cousin, Evyatar David. (Debbie Mohnblatt/The Media Line)

The media is a key component in giving the hostages a voice and applying international pressure to obtain their release. However, while there was a lot of international media interest in the first week or so, it has now shifted toward sympathy with the citizens of Gaza, said Peretz.

Ohayon finds what is happening hard to process. “It is devastating to see how people are only talking about how only Palestinians are suffering and they don’t see us. They don’t see how we are suffering constantly. We are being bombed daily. It is not a one-sided war, and I think that the world doesn’t know that,” she noted.

“Even when the media interest is becoming lower, and even when the media coverage is becoming a little more hostile towards Israel, being able to tell their [the hostages’] stories is all we are interested in,” Peretz stressed.

She continued by saying that 32 children go to sleep every night being held hostage by a terror organization, and it is the media’s responsibility to not let anyone forget that.

Ohayon is scared that the world will start moving on before the hostages return home.

The campaign has become so effective that Hamas sympathizers are actually ripping down the posters of hostages, including those picturing women, children, babies, and the elderly who are being held against their will in the Gaza Strip.

“I’m dismayed to see progressive, or so-called progressive, voices in Europe and in the US supporting Hamas. It doesn’t compute, it doesn’t make sense,” Shek asserted.

“I’m a two-state solution person myself,” he continued. “But I very clearly and strongly believe that if you want a better future for the Palestinians, then Hamas is certainly not your ally. Hamas is not interested in the future of the Palestinians. Hamas is interested in the future of radical Islam, that’s its agenda,” Shek stressed.

The thousands of volunteers who run this initiative will keep working until the last hostage returns home.

“The hostage situation is ongoing, and I hope it will not last long. But, for the moment, every day, you have to count as another day of captivity for these 231 individuals,” Shek concluded.