Dear colleagues and friends worldwide,
October 25, 2023
We, faculty members at the Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences at Ben-Gurion University
of the Negev, are reaching out for help on behalf of the Israeli families of more than two hundred
hostages held captive in Gaza. The community of Ben-Gurion University, located only some forty
kilometers from the Gaza Strip, suffered a horrible loss on October 7, 2023. The lives of many
students, administrative and technical staff, and faculty members were taken in this brutal
massacre, and faculty and students in our department lost friends and relatives. The lives of each
member of our community have been deeply shaken by this horrifying tragedy.
We chose to focus this letter on the hostages, in the hope of making even the slightest contribution
to the great effort of bringing them back. We thus describe one of the many devastating cases that
we have witnessed firsthand—that of Mrs. Ofri Bivas, a former member of a laboratory affiliated
with our department at ADI-Negev Rehabilitation Hospital.
On October 7, her life was turned upside down: her brother Yarden, his wife Shiri, and their two
redhead sons—a nine-month-old baby and a four-year-old—were brutally taken hostage by
inhumane Hamas terrorists. Her family lived in Nir Oz—a kibbutz bordering on Gaza. On
Saturday morning, they were awakened to the sounds of sirens, thinking that “it’s just another day
with rockets being fired from Gaza”. Ofri and Yarden had been texting since the early hours, soon
realizing that terrorists had infiltrated the kibbutz and were shooting at innocent civilians. By
approximately 9 AM, they had lost communication. Ever since, Ofri has had sleepless nights doing
everything in her power to rally support for the release of her family.
More than 200 innocent civilians—babies, children, elderly women, and disabled people—were
kidnapped and taken into Gaza as hostages. We are reaching out to you, fellow scholars
worldwide, to seek your support with a critical issue: your assistance in advocating for the
immediate and unconditional release of the hostages that are held in Gaza. These days are crucial,
and your assistance can make a significant impact in turning these concerns into a global priority.
Your involvement would mean a lot to us and many other faculty members at Ben-Gurion
University who were tragically affected by this crisis. We hope that with your support, and the
support of your colleagues, we can deliver this message in our time of need by distributing our
letter as widely as possible and by any other means you deem appropriate.
Sincerely,
Prof. Lior Shmuelof, Chair
A/Prof. Carmel Sofer
A/Prof. Oren Shriki
Dr. Nir Fresco
Dr. Talya Sadeh
Dr. Tal Golan
Dr. Marius Cohen
Dr. Moti Salti
Prof. Galia Avidan
Prof. Ilan Dinstein
