2023-12-08 19:25:42
In a bag, they folded t-shirts expressly made for their visit to France. The fabric is black, flocked with a photo of Ismaël Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, stuck to that of Kylian Mbappé, all titled in French: “Qatar must choose its side” and captioned “sponsored by Qatar”. This Friday, December 8, the small delegation of four families of hostages captured in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza on October 7 and since then held by Hamas, does not care much about diplomatic games, billiards for three, five or eighteen gangs, negotiation channels and political acrobatics. They can’t take it anymore. They died of anguish, mad with rage. They are angry with the whole world, with their government, which does nothing for their loved ones, with world opinion, which is already getting used to the slow death of their loved ones, and they came to Paris, led by the lawyer Calev Myers, founder of the NGO Arise, to “make noise” and say how for two months and a day every hour has been torture for them. Will they see Alon Sharmiz, a 26-year-old student, Doron Stenbrecher, a 30-year-old veterinary nurse, and the angel-faced twins, Ziv and Gali Berman, 26?
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Yonathan Sharmiz, Alon’s brother, no longer knows how to smile. Face hollow, eyes sunken, he does not understand how the French can put up with “seeing Qatar buy your footballers, your museums, in fact buying everything from you in France”, while this country “shelters and finances Hamas, All it would take is for Qatar to tell the terrorists to release their prey and it would be over in two minutes.” These four families lived in the kibbutz, they worked there, raised their children there, looked after their parents there, “it was 98% paradise and 2% hell, now it’s 100% hell”, says Yamit Ashkenazi, Doron’s sister. The place was so harmonious, so popular that candidates had to wait two years before they could hope to join the project and build a house there. They tell of the eight hundred families, all linked, the kindergarten, where theirs played where their little ones had fun before them, they describe the trees, the fruits, agriculture and business, “we are one family, we like peace, we don’t do politics.” With them, for decades, the dozens of Gazan workers, who “were like our brothers”, brothers who in the evening returned to Gaza and their sad fate. They now know that the very ones with whom they shared meals and work betrayed them, they assure that it is they, they alone, they necessarily who entrusted to the terrorist movement Hamas the plans of the kibbutz with the indications to identify the houses where were the weapons stocks, the telephone exchange, the generator, they say that the attackers followed an incredibly efficient process, a plan nourished from the inside. “All traitors,” they spit, waxen lips. “They first killed the teachers who took care of the children,” adds Yonathan Sharmiz. They escaped, in five minutes they fled, they no longer have identity papers, no more personal objects, they live in a hotel and their clothes are offered to them.
Thursday they were in Brussels, Saturday they will be in Strasbourg, this Friday they were received at the Senate. Everywhere, they distribute their t-shirts, “it is you who have the power over Qatar, it is not Israel”, they repeat, not wishing to dwell on the policy pursued by their Prime Minister. In their distress, they are particularly angry with the ICRC, the committee of the International Red Cross, the catalyst for their painful helplessness, and their reason abdicated by grief. Let no one come and talk to them about neutrality, transmission channels, or the senseless drama that the Palestinians are experiencing. They don’t hear. In Geneva, on October 20, they met the president of the ICRC, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, a Swiss diplomat. She cried as she listened to their stories. And it makes them even more angry that she cried, while their sister, their brothers died. “Why has the ICRC never visited a single hostage? What do they do apart from playing taxi when there are releases so that we can see their logo on television? Nothing, nothing” , Yonathan can’t take it anymore, he takes a breath, adds that of course “we have to protect civilians on both sides”, but here he only sees one side, that of his detained brother, without any perspective of be released soon. Besides, is he even alive? Hamas killed 63 people in their kibbutz, captured 19, released twelve, women with their children. The clock is ticking, they get up, mute, mechanical. In their hands, the poster representing the face of their parent. And in their bag, the t-shirt that says pain blinds. And that diplomacy is none of their business.
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