Do you remember the excitement you felt taking your children to nursery school for the first time? Do you recall your own sense of anticipation at the beginning of a new school year, the butterflies in your belly, your nervous optimism?

Last Sunday was the beginning of the new school year in Israel but my brother Yarden and my sister-in-law Shiri didn’t take their first-born Ariel to his first day of kindergarden, as we call it here in Israel, they didn’t carry baby Kfir into his new daycare centre.

Ofri with baby Kfir

No bags were packed with things with their children might need during the course of the day – a water bottle for Ariel, nappies for little Kfir, a change of clothes. And we, their family, didn’t receive photos of our beloved Ariel at the kindergarden entrance, a shy smile on his little face. There was no picture of Kfir with his new carers.

Think of this as your own children, your grandchildren, start school this week. Think of this milestone we could not mark, in a year in which our hearts have bled and bled and bled.

Ofri with her nephew Ariel (left) and her daughter,Toam

The festive season is now only a few weeks away and the thought of passing it without them is paralysing. But we can’t be paralysed, we can’t be silent, we must scream. Scream about the injustice of our country not yet bringing them back. Scream about their abandonment, this time under the pretext of the security importance of the Philadelphi Corridor.

Ofri with Ariel

After nearly 11 months since my nephews and my brother and sister-in-law were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, I expect solutions, not the false pretence that the state’s security stands against the lives of Yarden, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir. In the week in which we had the devastating news of the murder of Hersh, Eden, Carmel, Alex, Ori and Almog in Gaza, 11 months after they were kidnapped in Israel, I expect reckonings. I want to sit under the succah with my family, I don’t want to sit in a mourning tent.

Mr Netanyahu, you grew up in a family with a strong sense of history. What will your historical legacy be? If you don’t bring them back now, you will be remembered as Mr Abandonment.