WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — During the last 28 days of war, Israelis took to their streets clutching posters of loved ones taken hostage.
In West Palm Beach, Adi Marciano came from Israel bringing a poster bearing the face of her daughter Noa.
"I want to keep her safe," Marciano said. "I don't know what else can I do."
She is sharing the stress and pain of families with loved ones kept hostage somewhere in Gaza.
Marciano's account of her daughter's disappearance is chilling.
During the Hamas invasion on Oct. 7, she told WPTV she was on the phone with her daughter, who was living in a community at the edge of the Gaza Strip.
"She said, 'Everybody's now fighting outside.' I heard some rockets, you know. I heard some girls scream," Marciano said, recounting that day. "And she said, 'Mom, I need to be quiet now and I need to hang up the phone.' She (hung) up the phone. There's no time for me to say I love her."
A week later, Marciano said, a Hamas telegram showed a picture of Noa in handcuffs, looking afraid but strong.
She's heard nothing since.
"Maybe they have one woman like me that now is, you know, with my Noa," Marciano said. "And maybe there are some people that are good there that will keep them well in health and let them come home."
Marciano is in South Florida to raise awareness and support for her daughter and all hostages held by Hamas.
The Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County is helping her get her story out.
"It's important for them to have that story so that when we're speaking to our legislators, we are understanding and they're understanding the reality of the situation," Melissa Arden, the chief planning officer at the Jewish Federation, said.
"I have to be optimistic," Marciano added as she endured a gut-wrenching wait to hear any news about her daughter, now entering her fifth week of captivity.
"In my heart, I feel that she is alive," this worried but hopeful mother said. "So when I see a picture of her, she says to me, 'Mom, everything will be OK and I will come back home, and I [will] tell you all the things I've been through.'"
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