At first, when Yael Mozer-Glassberg, chief physician at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Israel, was asked to join the team of people in charge of admitting the returning hostage children in Israel, her internal reaction was immediate.”Oh my God, no,” she recalls thinking. “But how could I say no? It’s a national mission.”Mozer-Glassberg was selected to join a group in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, made up of the first medical professionals to attend to a group of children and their mothers returning to Israel. During the ceasefire, which lasted from November 24 to December 1, the hospital admitted nineteen children and six women who were kidnapped on October 7 in Israel by Hamas and other militant groups.To the initial surprise of many, the children rushed to speak candidly about their experiences. Social workers and psychologists listened attentively as the children told stories in voices barely above whispers.One child said he had kept track of time by tearing pieces of his nails and keeping the clippings to count the days. Efrat Bron-Harlev, director of Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Israel, said another child asked many questions: “Can we look out the window? Can we open the door? Can we leave the room?” Another girl said she was confused to see people waiting for her because she had been told that no one was looking for her, that no one cared about her, and that there would be nothing left of Israel when she returned.Sometimes, a social worker or psychologist would leave the room to cry.”They talked about death as if they were going to the supermarket and talking about what ice cream they were going to buy,” Mozer-Glassberg commented.The war has also hit women and children in Gaza particularly hard. Many of the 15,000 people who have died in Gaza since the war began on October 7, according to the UN and Gaza health officials, are women and children.Bron-Harlev had long planned how her hospital would receive the kidnapped children. Just over a week after October 7, she sent an email to the Ministry of Health: “Let’s think about optimistic days, when the children return from their captivity.”Bron-Harlev began assembling a team that looked like an entire new ward. She didn’t know if any hostage had suffered sexual trauma, she noted, so she created a team made up mainly of women. She didn’t know if anyone would return with severe physical trauma, so she created an on-call team that included the head of the intensive care unit, the head of anesthesiology, the head of the surgical team, and the head of orthopedics.Then, Bron-Harlev built a small inner circle that included top-level doctors and nurses, social workers and psychologists, hospital support staff, and kitchen staff. Food could be a crucial issue, she thought. What could they eat and what would they want to eat?When the children arrived, some with their mothers, they were gradually received. First, they were reunited with their families and spent time together. The medical teams approached each child and each mother with care.”We did it slowly, one step forward, two steps back, to see what their needs were,” explained Efrat Harel, director of social services at the medical center. Each patient was assigned a doctor, a nurse, a social worker, and a psychologist.They found patients who had lost between ten and fifteen percent of their body weight, who had their heads full of lice and their torsos covered in bites, and who had hygiene like never seen in the hospital. Many only bathed once during captivity, just before being released, with a bucket of cold water and a cloth.One patient felt especially comfortable with Mozer-Glassberg, so she spent four days slowly brushing the girl’s hair with a lice comb and silently crying. Mozer-Glassberg recalls that the girl asked her if she should shave her head because the infestation was so severe. “They will eventually disappear,” Mozer-Glassberg assured her, referring to the lice. “They will go away.”At first, the doctor feared that the children would suffer from refeeding syndrome, a dangerous condition in which a malnourished person starts eating normally before the body is able to digest larger portions.However, when they were fed, many children took small bites and then set the food aside. When asked why, Mozer-Glassberg said they responded, “So that the food lasts for the rest of the day.”Despite being assured that more food was available, many children struggled to eat.Then, at 1 a.m. on their second night in the hospital, a child asked for schnitzel and mashed potatoes—a blessed breakthrough—and the kitchen staff eagerly prepared the meal and found a good plate, utensils, and a glass to serve it.The children began speaking louder and playing with their relatives outside their rooms.But questions and concerns continue to haunt parents and caregivers.A mother recounted the story of how she and her daughter were taken to Gaza in the back of a tractor with a soldier who had been seriously injured. When they arrived in Gaza, her daughter was covered in blood, and the girl asked her mother, “What happened to the man who spilled red?” Bron-Harlev said, translating.The girl keeps asking about the man. The mother doesn’t know what happened to him.On Monday, after the sirens sounded in Petah Tikva, sending the girl and her mother to a secure room in the hospital, the girl asked her mother if they were going back to the tunnels. When she assured her that they weren’t, the girl asked if they were going to change places, like they did in Gaza.The hospital’s work is heart-wrenching, and the staff members have supported each other, said Dani Lotan, who oversees the direction of psychological services at Schneider Children’s Medical Center. Many said they had to slow down, that they realized they couldn’t rehabilitate the children and mothers in a day or two or “make up for everything they had lost,” Lotan said.Like much of Israel, Mozer-Glassberg hopes to be able to treat two other children, Kfir Bibas, who was 9 months old when he was kidnapped along with his 4-year-old brother, Ariel Bibas. Hamas claimed that both children and their mother, Shiri, were killed by Israeli airstrikes, but Israeli authorities have not confirmed that information. The Bibas family has said they hope the claims will be “refuted by military officials.”As Mozer-Glassberg spoke, a loud siren began to sound outside, and her phone announced “tzevah adom” in Hebrew: red alert.”Oh!” she exclaimed, grabbed her things, and headed with the rest of the staff to a nearby staircase, as the Israeli defense system Iron Dome intercepted the missiles.Both her work and the war were far from over.
