2023-10-27 06:36:30
In a crowded room at the headquarters of the Jewish Community of Madrid, five Israelis have recounted their terrible experience since On the 7th, Hamas kidnapped his relatives in the great terrorist attack in the south of Israel. Practically all of them, in addition, have seen many loved ones die, but they have gathered the strength to travel to Spain on a visit that has come from civil society organizations and has had the help of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
The Israeli ambassador to our country was present at the event, Rodica Radian-Gordonwho explained how the group has met in recent days with members of the Executive and various institutions and has made a “call” for “the Government and society to join us in these efforts to do everything possible to that more than 220 innocent Israeli citizens return to their homes.
The relatives and the Israeli ambassador | C. Jordan
“Hamas does not let the Red Cross in”
After the ambassador’s very brief intervention, four people spoke, two of them in Spanish and two others in English. The first to intervene was Maayan Sigal-Korena middle-aged woman who has told how her mother “was kidnapped on October 7 and with her his partner, a brother, a sister and her daughterwho were visiting the kibbutz in the south of the country.
Like the others, Maayan has recounted the distressing contacts via WhatsApp during the morning of the 7th and how “At 11 they told us that the terrorists had entered and it was cut off”. Later they learned that “their phones were in Gaza” and tried to find an image of their relatives among the videos that Hamas has made public, “but we found nothing.”
“My mother always told me,” Maayan said without being able to hold back her tears, “that She decided to go to Israel because she couldn’t feel safe anywhere else. Now his house is no longer safe.”
One of the concerns of all the people who are suffering from this terrible, unprecedented situation – “There is no precedent in the world for the kidnapping of such a large mass of civilians, it is a clear case of war crime“, Maayan herself explained – is the health of the kidnapped, because “Hamas does not let the Red Cross enterand my relatives are older people, for example my mother’s partner has diabetes and I don’t know what condition he is in without his medicines. “Please,” he begged, We need your help so that if they don’t come out now, at least they let the medicines arrive.”
During question time, Maayan expressed the complex feelings of all those affected about how this tremendous humanitarian crisis can be put to an end: “I don’t know what can be done to get the kidnapped people out of there. all I want is to hug my mother. “I love her and I love her today, I don’t care about anything else.”
Maayan Sigal-Koren and Merav Mor Ravivi | C. Jordan
“They entered the kibbutz and it was carnage”
The second to speak was Merav Mor Curative, a woman in her 50s whose father has been kidnapped in a small kibbutz near Gaza, along with his wife, her daughter, and a grandson who turned 9 last Monday.
They are not the only relatives of Merav who have suffered from the brutal Hamas terrorist attack: “My cousin was in the kibbutz, but they found him later with his hands tied and riddled with bulletshis house was burned to the ground.”
On that fateful morning of the 7th Merav also experienced the anguish of WhatsApp messages until at 10 in the morning an aunt was the one who gave them the fateful news: “She whispered that she couldn’t speak because the terrorists were already there“.
She has not had any proof that her relatives are kidnapped, but it seems most likely given the account they have managed to gather thanks to the survivors of the kibbutz and the videos published by Hamas themselves. An account of the tragedy that was absolutely overwhelming: “They entered the kibbutz and it was carnagethey went house to house and some were killed and others were kidnapped,” he says.
“They burned houses with people inside, father, mother and three children,” he explains before telling a particularly horrifying story: “They took a 14-year-old boy and convinced him that if he went house to house and made people leave, they would not kill him. He did it and They killed them all and him too. Hamas recorded everything,” Merav insisted, “there was even a TV crew with a reporter in one of whose videos you can see my house.”
Some stories that, unfortunately, are not extraordinary: “What happened here is very similar to what has happened in other places, There are children in Gaza who are kidnapped and saw their parents killed“.
Seven hours in the trash
Merav has also told the story of “one of my employees”, who was at the music festival in southern Israel in which Hamas murdered 260 people: “She hid with 15 people in a garbage container”, but finally “a terrorist saw them and shot until he killed them all, except her”.
“She was the only one who survived, and she spent about seven hours there” until Israeli soldiers rescued her at night, “but since then he has not spoken, he has become a zombie“.
“They are inside, there are many of them, I am afraid”
Face Weimnberg She was the youngest of the people who gave her testimony at this press conference in Madrid. With a broken voice almost from the first moment, she has narrated the hell she suffered that morning in the distance: “I cannot describe what I experienced receiving those messages, see that this has happened to your relatives and that you can’t do anything“.
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For example, Naama had to read how her uncle told her “they are here, ask for help” or read an even more distressing message from her 97-year-old grandmother: “Please help, they are inside, there are many of them, I’m afraid”. Until “one after another we lost contact with the entire family.”
She had relatives in five different houses in Kibbutz Be’eri, very close to Gaza, – she was in Tel Aviv meanwhile – and she preferred not to tell what happened to each of them: “Some have died, Others have survived but I want to focus on my cousin Ital, who is the only one who can still be saved” and who was kidnapped in the house where his parents were, both murdered.
Naama has described her cousin as a person whose life “is dedicated to helping others”, who “was full of compassion” and who “He has never done anything bad to anyone”. “I don’t want to think about what he’s going through,” she said, again through tears, “but I have no doubt that even in the darkest places his life will shine and she will be trying to help her fellow captives.”
“We need the world’s help,” he asked, “also emphasizing that no one from the Red Cross has yet visited Gaza, no one is checking that they are being cared for, if the children receive their milk and diapers.” Finally, he recalled that there are only two countries in the world that can “talk to Hamas” and has asked that whatever be done with them to return the kidnapped people home, but at the same time he has assured without a shadow of a doubt that “The obligation of world leaders is to stop Hamas and they have to do it today”
Naama Weimnberg and Yulie Ben-Ami | C. Jordan
“I have no home, I have nowhere to return”
The last testimony has been that of Yulie Ben-Amiwho was accompanied by her husband Roberto Meyer. They were in the same kibbutz where their parents were kidnapped.
“They were in their house and we were in our apartment, from six in the morning we heard the noise of explosions and at half past six we realized that there were many of them, that there were a hundred terrorists in the kibbutz, because we heard a lot of screams in Arabic and gunshots.
He also spoke to his mother through WhatsApp. At first the news was worrying – “he told me that (the terrorists) were trying to enter the house” – and then it became terrifying: “At nine thirty “He told me that they had entered the house and were destroying everything.”. And at ten o’clock the worst news arrived: “My father wrote to my sister and told her that they had been caught.”
That same morning they found out what had happened to their father: “We received a photo of my father in Gaza”, he tells us. However, the information about her mother took much longer to wait: “A week later I received a photo of my mother, she was in pajamas and without shoes,” she explains, “my mother is very sick, He needs medicine and we don’t know if he is receiving it. or how long you will survive without them,” he tells us, assuring us that they have contacted the Red Cross but, as we have already mentioned, for now Hamas has prevented this organization from entering Gaza and seeing all these hostages of the terrorists.
“It was a horrible massacre”
While their parents were kidnapped they had to remain hidden all day: “We heard screams of children, women, many shots…”. When the army finally arrived to rescue them, they had to escape while the terrorists continued shooting and through a Dantesque panorama: “We saw many bodies on the ground and burned cars.”
Yulie and Roberto lived in a small kibbutz where everyone knew each other and with a strong feeling of community for which, obviously, the tragedy has been unspeakable: “I lost many people that I have known all my life, they no longer care.” I will never see again,” he explained crying, “I have gone to four funerals on the same day and one of them was a family; the two parents and two children and there are two other children who have been left alone“.
“Now I have no home, I have nowhere to return,” he explains, “my parents’ house is destroyed, others are burned, we lost ten percent of our community, there are missing people, there are children who were murdered, it was a horrible massacre“.
“We must put an end to Hamas”
Yulie cries out about the injustice that is being committed: “They (the kidnapped people) don’t have to be there, they didn’t do anything, there are children, elderly people, they have nothing to blame“, he tells us, “we just want the world’s help so they can return.”
He also demands that the Government of Israel “start doing things to rescue the hostages,” but makes it very clear that that will be “first” and that “Then we must put an end to the terrorist organization Hamas”.
Finally, when asked about the demonstrations in support of Hamas in many places in Europe, she is convinced that “all those who are in the streets making these protests They have no idea about the things that happened there.“The way these people murdered these children was like ISIS, they shot a nine-month-old baby, children in front of their parents, they burned houses with children who couldn’t get out… They don’t understand what we went through,” finishes.
That may be so, but it may also be that the most fanatics don’t care about all this suffering of the innocent.
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