STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Our lead news item today is a cry from the heart. Families of Israeli hostages have been shouting into Gaza.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
They did that near the border where Hamas has been holding their relatives for close to a year now. Israel plans to stop bombing in parts of Gaza for limited hours to allow for polio vaccinations for children. But this is not a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that would free the hostages and end the war. The best way to tell this story is to let you hear the families for yourself. So here's NPR's Carrie Kahn.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Macabit Mayer's two nephews were kidnapped by Hamas militants on October 7, not far from where she's standing right now along the dusty, dry border barrier between southern Israel and Gaza.
MACABIT MAYER: (Speaking Hebrew).
KAHN: She says, "the government isn't listening to what the families want - what we need - and are stubbornly moving ahead with plans to commemorate a moment the country is still grieving over." She holds a poster with the pictures of her twin nephews still held hostage who will turn 27 next week.
MAYER: Ziv born before Gali in about one second (speaking Hebrew).
KAHN: Switching to Hebrew, Mayer says the two born just one second apart are inseparable. Mayer is here with dozens of other family and friends of the 107 hostages still being held in Gaza, all frustrated with the government that they say doesn't listen to them. One by one, they climb a makeshift platform surrounded by loudspeakers. They shout. Many scream, rawly releasing that impotence directly into Gaza, hoping to be heard.
MAYER: (Shouting) Gali, Ziv, (crying, speaking Hebrew).
KAHN: "Gali, Ziv, this is auntie Bity (ph)," screams Mayer. "You're so close to us, yet you are so far away," she continues. "Stay strong," she cries.
MALACHI SHEM TOV: (Shouting) Omer. Omer. Omer Shem Tov (ph).
KAHN: Malachi (ph) Shem Tov shouts his son's name over and over again into the hot wind. "Please know we are fighting our government to get you out," he says. Punctuating the more than an hour of family messages are multiple explosion sounds in Gaza, a continuation of Israel's more than 10-month-long assault there. Since October 7, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza's health authorities, nearly 100,000 wounded.
Prime Minister Netanyahu says he won't make a deal with Hamas until Israel's security demands are met. He's tasked his transportation minister, Miri Regev, to move forward with the commemoration despite objections and boycotts. Regev says the criticism doesn't bother her.
MIRI REGEV: (Speaking Hebrew).
KAHN: "I'll take the hit," she says, "and ignore all the noise." "The ceremony is important," she says. Such comments are more of the government's arrogance says Malachi Shem Tov, who repeatedly shouted his son Omer's name across the border. "Why focus on a commemoration now? The war is still raging," he says.
SHEM TOV: No sensitivity. Come on. Who's thinking about it? Who? It's the same like they don't do enough in order to bring them back home.
KAHN: He and many other relatives say they don't know how they'll mark this coming October 7. They say they can't think that far into the future.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News, at the Israeli-Gaza border. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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