“If he is dead, I just want his body back,” the cry of ache from a hostage mom in Gaza | EUROtoday
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Ln October 6, Jonathan Samerano, 21, was in a cheerful temper, dancing and having enjoyable at his house in Tel Aviv. “He was happy to go to a music festival, even if I was worried, because I know that there are often drugs circulating at these events, but he reassured me,” remembers his mom , Ayelet, with a smile.
When she wakes up the subsequent morning at daybreak to the sound of rockets being fired from the Gaza Strip, she instantly grabs her telephone to name her son, who’s 4 kilometers from the Palestinian enclave, on the SuperNova competition. Today, sitting in a Parisian condo, her face drawn, Ayelet recounts the telephone ringing in useless, the decision to her greatest pal whose son Maor is with Jonathan, and these phrases which initially reassured them.
In a FaceTime along with his mom, Maor exhibits the rockets raining down within the sky then tells her that he, Jonathan and their pal Benaya are heading to their automotive to go house. However, a police officer asks them to show round, as there are too many dangers on the street to Tel Aviv, and means that they take refuge within the shelter of a kibbutz.
Hamas releases ultra-violent video of kidnapping
Be'eri is only some kilometers away. Arriving in entrance of the imposing yellow electrical gate of the kibbutz, Maor calls his father to warn them that the three of them are secure and that he’s going to show off his telephone to protect its battery. The dad and mom of the three younger males had no information for 4 days, pondering they have been hidden someplace. Seconds turn out to be hours for Ayelet.
Until October 10, when his sister's husband knowledgeable him that he had come throughout a video printed on Hamas' Telegram loop. In the pictures, a white SUV sort automobile enters Be'eri and stops at an inert physique mendacity on the asphalt, close to a gutted cooler. Slowly, a primary man wearing a blue t-shirt, his head coated with a lightweight chechia and holding a Kalashnikov in his hand, will get out of the automobile to open the trunk. He is joined by the driving force, dressed completely in black. The latter takes care to unfold a blanket to guard his trunk. Then collectively, they seize the physique by the ft and legs, load it into the automotive and canopy it with the blanket.
The two Hamas males nonetheless take the time to choose up some private results scattered subsequent to the physique: a cap and a cellular phone particularly. They then fled in reverse, with out having glanced on the sidewalk, the place there have been, barely a number of meters away, two different inanimate our bodies.
Ayelet by no means wished to see this video. His brother-in-law, then the daddy of his son, acknowledged Jonathan there. On Wednesday, October 11, Maor's dad and mom acquired a name from a military official asking them to return and determine their son's physique. Just after the burial, which should be performed instantly based on Jewish ritual, it’s the flip of Benaya's dad and mom to be contacted. “Every twelve hours, we had bad news, I waited my turn,” confides Ayelet.
The Israeli military recreates the macabre state of affairs
The dreaded name comes. On the opposite finish of the road, a girl from the military asks her the place she is and if she will be able to come and meet her. “I said it was a mistake, that it wasn’t me she was trying to contact,” remembers this elegant lady. As Ayelet drives house, she realizes that she was not requested to return determine a physique. A glimmer of hope. “I asked if he had been kidnapped, I was told yes and I was so relieved… Because that meant he might still be alive. »
The army reconstructs the macabre scenario for her: armed terrorists first shot at the car where her son and his friends were, took them out of the vehicle which they then stole to enter the kibbutz. Others, who came on a motorcycle, then shot at them. Then the white car arrived to take Jonathan away. “We know today that everyone had specific missions: kill, kidnap, steal,” says Ayelet.
The younger man's mom nonetheless lives with the hope that her son remains to be alive. “But after 57 days, the government called me to say they had reason to believe Jonathan was dead. We don't know exactly what happened. Simply that he was shot and taken unconscious to Gaza,” she says. Six months later, Ayelet has no formal proof that her son is useless. “I have nothing,” she laments.
UNWRA worker recognized in video
One hundred days after October 7, Ayelet acquired one other name, this time to warn her that one of many males who kidnapped her son was a social employee for UNRWA, the UN company for Palestinian refugees. For a number of weeks, the military had recognized the license plate of the white SUV by which Jonathan was kidnapped as belonging to UNRWA. “But they thought the car might have been stolen,” says Ayelet.
It was solely in February, after a number of months of a cruel battle waged within the Gaza Strip, that the Israeli military discovered the identification papers of a sure Faisal within the places of work of the UN company. Ali Mussalem al-Naami, recognized as the person in black within the video by which he kidnaps Jonathan.
Information since confirmed by the Israeli Minister of Defense and member of the battle cupboard, Yoav Gallant. According to Israel, no less than twelve UNRWA staff “actively participated” within the massacres of October 7. The UN company, for its half, admitted to having separated 9 of its staff, indicated that one other had been confirmed useless and that the identities of two others needed to be “clarified”. So many circumstances described as “problematic” by the UNWRA, with out additional particulars. “How could a member of an organization that defends human rights and supposedly promotes peace kidnap my son? » Ayelet chokes.
Today, a part of her still wants to believe that her son is alive. “As long as it's not over, nothing is lost, there are sometimes miracles,” she slips, earlier than her voice breaks right into a sob. “But if he’s useless, I simply need to have his physique again, kiss it, bury it and have a spot the place I pays my respects. I carried him inside me, I need to have the ability to say goodbye to him. » With her palms, she clutches a gold plaque on which is inscribed a prayer in Hebrew. The plaque is connected to a necklace she gave her son for his birthday. He by no means leaves her coronary heart.
https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/s-il-est-mort-je-veux-juste-recuperer-son-corps-le-cri-de-douleur-d-une-mere-d-otage-a-gaza-12-04-2024-2557515_24.php