Adi Kikozashvili says the only reason she can go on with her life is because it is what her older brother would want her to do.

That brother, 40-year-old Shlomi Ziv, was kidnapped on October 7 (he turned 41 on Sunday, January 21, 2024), while working as part of the security detail at the Supernova desert rave festival when Hamas terrorists stormed into southern Israel, brutally murdering 1,200 people — including 360 at the festival — and taking 253 hostages into Gaza.

Ziv’s wife’s cousin, Aviv Eliyahu, the security manager at the festival, was among those slaughtered there.

Based on various sources of intelligence information, Israeli officials say at least 27 of the estimated 132 remaining hostages have died in captivity. Kikozashvili told The Times of Israel that the IDF has informed her family that they think her brother is alive.

It is that hope that keeps her going.

On January 14, Kikozashvili started her final year of studies at Haifa’s Technion in food bioengineering. She has difficulty concentrating, she said, and has to “study how to study again.”

“But he’ll be upset if I don’t finish because of him,” she said.

Keep reading at timesofisrael.com.