“You are my hero.”

The words left my mouth as I embraced former Hamas hostages Keith Siegel and Omer Wenkert for a hug. I was shaking, unsure if anything I could say would ever be enough.

Just moments before, I had been sitting in a crowded room at an event hosted by the Israeli American Council, listening as they spoke. For months, their names, like so many others, had lived on posters, in headlines, and in prayers. They were symbols of fear, loss, and hope. But that afternoon, those symbols became human. They stood before me, not as stories we followed from afar, but as people who had endured what most of us cannot begin to imagine.

At one point, the interviewer asked a question that caught the entire room off guard: "Even in the darkest moments,  deep in the tunnels of Gaza, were there any moments of joy?"

I remember thinking that there was no way. No chance at all that joy could exist in a place defined by fear, isolation, and survival.

Without hesitation, both Keith and Omer answered simply: “We had to.” They explained that if they couldn’t find moments of joy, they wouldn’t have been able to keep going.

That answer stayed with me. In a place designed to strip them of their humanity, they chose to hold onto it. Even in the most somber and terrifying conditions, they found reasons to continue. In that moment, I understood something I will never forget: they were my heroes not only because they survived, but because they kept going.

As they continued speaking, the room fell into a silence I will always remember. Not the silence of shock, but of reverence. Listening to them, I realized that resilience is not dramatic or loud. It is the quiet strength to keep moving forward, even when hope feels out of reach.

When the program ended, I didn’t plan what I was going to do. I didn’t rehearse a sentence in my head. I simply stood up and walked toward them. There were no eloquent words that felt sufficient. All I could offer in that moment was a hug and the only words that felt honest: “You are my heroes”.

We often imagine heroes as distant figures, frozen in history books or comic pages. That afternoon changed how I see heroism. Heroes aren’t always polished or larger-than-life; sometimes they are human, carrying wounds as they find their way forward. And sometimes, they stand right in front of you, reminding you what it means to endure.

I walked in expecting to listen to two thought-provoking stories. I walked out carrying a lesson I will never forget: heroism is not just surviving. Instead, it’s choosing to keep going, even in the darkest of times.