From Captivity to ‘New Normal’: The Long Road Home for Gali and Ziv Berman
One year after their release from Hamas captivity, the Berman twins are navigating a world that stood still while they were gone, wrestling with the profound challenges of reclaiming their identities.
By [Staff Reporter]
The air in Be’eri was thick with the scent of burning pine and iron on the morning of October 7, 2023. For Gali and Ziv Berman, twin brothers whose bond had always been their greatest strength, the world they knew was about to be violently extinguished within the span of a few screaming hours. The rocket barrages that tore through the sky were just a prelude; the sound of gunfire ripping through their quiet kibbutz signaled an apocalypse. Amid the chaos, the brothers were separated from their family and dragged into the Gaza Strip, joining the hundreds of civilians taken during the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history. Their capture marked the beginning of a harrowing, uncertain confinement. Yet, as they walk the streets of Tel Aviv today, a year after their release, the physical chains are gone—but the psychological battlefield is one they must traverse anew every single morning.
For the Berman family, the weeks following the attack were a blur of desperate media appeals and silent prayers. Gali and Ziv were not just faces on a poster; they were vibrant men in their mid-twenties with a penchant for travel and a deep connection to their agricultural roots. The hope for their survival became a national cause, but their rescue came not through a dramatic military raid, but through the quiet, agonizing machinery of diplomatic negotiation. When the ceasefire deal was brokered, the twins stood blinking in the harsh lights of the Red Cross vehicle, their gaunt frames a stark contrast to the healthy, smiling images their family had circulated. The jubilation of their return home was tempered by the stark reality of what they had endured and the knowledge that so many others remained behind.
Now, a full year into their freedom, the brothers admit that “adjustment” is merely a polite word for a grueling, non-linear reconstruction of the self. In exclusive, deeply candid reflections shared with local media, they speak less about the physical privations of captivity—the lack of sunlight, the insufficient food—and more about the perverse mental loop that captivity has left behind. “You spend 403 days in survival mode, where silence means safety and routine can come at the cost of your identity,” Ziv explained, his voice carrying the weight of his experience. “When you come back, the world expects you to just plug back in. But your brain doesn’t know how to switch off the alarm system.” This hyper-vigilance, a common affliction among released hostages, has made the cacophony of Israeli life—the traffic, the crowds in the shuk, the sudden loud bang of a backfiring car—feel like hostile assaults on their nervous system.
The family home in Be’eri, which they once shared with their parents and other siblings, is no longer the sanctuary it once was. The kibbutz they returned to is a phoenix still rising from the ashes, partially rebuilt but irrevocably altered. Rather than move back into the memory-soaked landscape of their childhood, the twins have chosen a more independent path, renting an apartment in central Israel. In many ways, this decision represents their primary coping mechanism: agency. “In Gaza, we had zero control. We controlled our breathing, and that was it,” Gali noted during a recent interview. “Here, we choose what we eat, when we wake up, and who we see. It sounds trivial, but reclaiming those micro-choices is the first step in feeling like a human being again.”
However, the path to recovery has been fraught with the morbid complexity of survivor’s guilt. The twins have spoken frequently about the “tunnel vision” that defined their survival, focusing intensely on each other to the exclusion of the broader tragedy. Returning to civilization has forced them to confront the scale of the loss—the friends from their kibbutz who were killed, the families burned in their safe rooms, and the desecration of the place they loved. Their liberation arrives with a heavy, paradoxical burden: they are alive, but they have returned to a mausoleum. The brothers are working with trauma specialists to navigate this terrain, acknowledging that the “new normal” they are building is not about forgetting, but about learning how to carry the weight of the past without letting it crush the future.
Looking ahead, the Berman brothers are channeling their survival into advocacy and purpose, a transition that marks their most significant step toward mental closure. They have become vocal proponents for the psychological rehabilitation of returning hostages, arguing that the state’s responsibility continues long after the press conference ends. They are turning their anger into a drive to implement better mental health frameworks for survivors across the country, ensuring that the invisible wounds are given the same urgent attention as physical ones. They also recently returned to work, continuing studies and reconnecting with a career path that seemed to belong to a different lifetime. It is a slow, deliberate march, but it is a march forward.
As they pause their lives to mark the somber anniversary of their release, Gali and Ziv Berman stand as a testament to human resilience, yet they fiercely resist the label of “heroes.” To them, they are merely brothers who happened to survive. But their story—of enduring the unendurable and then having the courage to face the ordinary demands of daily life—resonates deeply in a nation still staggering under the weight of grief. They represent the delicate balance between celebrating life reclaimed and mourning the life that was stolen. One year out, they are not fully healed; they acknowledge they may never be. But they are here, in the light, navigating the complex, poignant, and often overwhelming journey from captive to survivor, proving that while the scars may fade, the will to rebuild the self is a war waged every single day.
