For more than a month, Silver’s two sons, Yonatan and Chen, believed she was one of the estimated 240 people taken hostage by militants when they overran southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, the government has said.

The two men wrestled with how their mother, who helped transport Gazan children to Israeli hospitals, would feel about Israel’s deadly response to the attack. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.