^{Erez Kalderon during his bar mitzvah in Kiryat Gat on Oct. 31, 2024. Source: X.}

Former Hamas captive Erez Kalderon celebrated his bar mitzvah in Kiryat Gat, southeast of Ashkelon, on Thursday, after marking his 12th birthday in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas terrorists kidnapped Kalderon, along with his father, Ofer, and 16-year-old sister, Sahar, from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Erez and Sahar were among 105 hostages released last November as part of a weeklong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Ofer, now 53, remains a captive in Gaza.

“It was very difficult. For probably the first time in the last year, we let ourselves celebrate for Erez to feel some joy in almost 400 days,” Eyal Kalderon, Ofer’s cousin, told JNS on Sunday.

“It’s such an emotional event for any Jewish boy, a bar mitzvah ceremony. It’s his transition from child to grown-up. It’s very symbolic and he deserved to feel on that day like a regular kid. We just wanted to give him that chance even if just for one hour,” Eyal added. 

In September, Erez shared the harrowing story of his kidnapping and captivity in Gaza.

“It’s difficult for me to speak on camera, but if this reaches my dad—it’s worth everything,” he said in a video message.

Erez recounted the terrifying moments when attackers breached their home: “They simply broke the handle and entered. My dad quickly ran to the safe room, yelled at my sister Sahar to open the window, and I jumped out first.”

Erez was caught by an attacker who took him away on a motorcycle. “I glanced to the side and saw my dad on his knees while they were beating him—that was the last time I saw him,” he recalled.

As he read a portion of the Torah on Thursday, Erez was accompanied by his uncle Nissan Kalderon, Ofer’s brother. 

“His father was meant to stand next to him and give him the confidence to do his ‘aliyah to the Torah,’ but he wasn’t. Erez did it with Nissan but it’s not the same,” Eyal Kalderon told JNS. “We live with very mixed feelings, happiness but a lot of sadness as well.”

After the bar mitzvah ceremony, the Kalderons held an event in Ness Ziona, where family members delivered speeches and a clip of Erez and Ofer was shown.

According to the latest Israeli intelligence assessment, an estimated 51 out of the 101 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza are alive.

“You can be alive one day and dead the next. It should be the world’s priority to bring them back,” Eyal said.

CIA director William Burns has proposed a 28-day ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for Hamas releasing eight hostages and Israel freeing dozens of Palestinian terrorists, Axios reported, citing three Israeli officials.

The head of the U.S. intelligence agency advanced the plan during discussions in Doha on Oct. 27 with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and Mossad director David Barnea.

On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the return of the hostages has become the IDF’s “most important mission” in Gaza.

Gallant said that the IDF will continue to put “as much pressure on Hamas as possible in order to create the conditions necessary to ensure the return of the hostages.”

The government, he continued, “must do what is necessary to bring about a deal. You must apply military pressure and do what is necessary to create the conditions required for us to carry out an agreement. This is our most important mission in Gaza at this time.”

Source: JNS