Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's The Excerpt, ad free right now.

Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app.

I try to disconnect my sense, not to think what is she doing, because this is break me.

That was Schlemy Berger.

Schlemy's 20-year-old daughter Agam was taken hostage by Hamas militants on October 7,

2023.

She was at a remote outpost of the Israeli Defence Forces, and it was the beginning of her second day as a soldier with the IDF.

Her family hopes and praise she is still alive, though it has been months since the last sign of life.

It was like going to the unknown.

As it's placed one who was seeking safety.

I've been just thinking about the safety of my children.

Nore Swirke is a journalist and young mother of two who is now stranded in Gaza alongside her husband.

Her two children, parents and siblings all crossed into Cairo when the border was briefly opened.

Nor hoped she could follow soon after, but that plan was scuttled when the border was abruptly closed again.

I'm Kim Helmguard, USA Today World Affairs Correspondent, and this is the excerpt.

Today is Sunday October 6, 2024.

Schlami and Nor are just two of many thousands

whose lives have been upended by the events of October 7th and the year of war that followed.

For both it has been a year of agony, a year of hope, a year of pain,

and a year of small moments of joy that somehow carried them through it all.

This is the story of that year in their own words.

In October 8th, about 5 a.m. in the morning when I saw the video of a gum in the jeep and I said to myself,

...