In the heart of Tel Aviv, every night, something deeply human happens—people gather at Hostages Square not to shout or protest, but to remember. They light candles. They sing. They cry. And they wait.
One of them is Doron Zekser. He’s not just another face in the crowd. He’s the stepfather of 19-year-old Edan Alexander, an American-Israeli soldier who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 and dragged into Gaza. The last image anyone saw of Edan was a Hamas propaganda video—him, being pulled into the Strip. Since then: silence.
“I was in Rosh Pina that day,” Doron recalls. “My family was back in the kibbutz. Rockets started flying. People ran. But nothing prepared us for what was coming next.”
Doron knows pain. In 2019, he fell 15 meters off a cliff and survived. Disabled now, yes—but broken? Never. He shows up every single night at Hostages Square. Talking to families. Giving lectures. Keeping Edan’s story—and the stories of all the hostages—alive.
“This isn’t just about Edan,” he says. “This is about standing up to barbarity. To cruelty. And saying: You may have taken them, but you will never erase them.”
The interview was conducted by Georgian journalist Mikheil Khachidze, who met Doron in Tel Aviv during one of these emotional evenings.
