Israeli family pushing for Hamas hostage’s release marks Rosh Hashanah with hope, but “nothing to celebrate”

Southern Israel — Ahead of the Jewish New Year holiday, Rosh Hashanah, Efrat Machikawa helped prepare food for dinner at her home in southern Israel. Her family eats Tunisian food to mark the occasion, and her mother made a number of delicacies, including spinach glazed in honey.

But Machikawa told CBS News that this year’s holiday — one of the most significant in Judaism — wouldn’t be the celebration it usually is, because one of her family members is still being held hostage in war-torn Gaza.

“We know it’s a holiday, but it’s nothing to celebrate. Nothing,” she said. “They should have been here.”

CBS News last visited Machikawa at her home in southern Israel almost a year ago, just days after Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attacks. Six members of her family had just been killed or taken hostage from their homes in Kibbutz Nir Oz — among the 1,200 people massacred and the 251 kidnapped that day.

“It’s very hard to describe this past year, because it really doesn’t feel as if a year has been… I say, it’s one long day,” Machikawa said.

One of her relatives was killed and four were eventually released by Hamas, including her aunt Margalit, who had serious health issues when she was abducted.

Finally freed from captivity, it was hard for Margalit to accept what had happened on Oct. 7.

“It wasn’t easy for her to realize what really happened to her house, to her community, to her friends, to people she loved, to the other kibbutzim, to the whole country,” Machikawa said.

Since we last met her, she’s been working tirelessly to get her uncle Gadi Moses, the last member of the family still held in Gaza, back home.

She’s been among the families and friends of hostages pushing Israel’s government hard to accept a deal with Hamas for a cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Machikawa has traveled the world, appealing to foreign leaders to mount pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Everyone that is connected to the negotiation table and the army — the security and the army — are amazing, amazing people. But if I talk about my government… I don’t think they did what a government, what my idea of government, would do,” Machikawa said. “The feeling that it’s on us, on the families, to maintain the national and international interest in releasing these 101 hostages is quite hard to take.”

Israeli officials believe 64 of the hostages are still alive.

Machikawa said that, despite the difficulties, she will continue working to bring her uncle, and the other hostages, back home.

“There must be a hope. I am hopeful,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able not to be hopeful. I don’t have the capacity not to be hopeful.”