A year after the October 7, 2023 massacre and the kidnapping of 251 people, 107 are still being held in Gaza. The hostages’ families will hold their own ceremony and refuse to participate in that of the Israeli government.
:quality(50)/2023/07/07/64a7df4c5fe71_placeholder-36b69ec8.png)
Published
Reading time: 1 min
:quality(50)/2024/08/30/000-36ey93e-66d1861e4bbfe562563530.jpg)
In Israel, hostage families are refusing to attend the official ceremony to mark the anniversary of the October 7 massacre. They say they do not feel “will not lend themselves to this cynical game while the State [les] “abandoned for almost a year” and intend to organize an alternative commemoration.
This official ceremony is at the center of a controversy. It will be pre-recorded and without an audience, announced the minister Miri Regev, in charge of its organization. The kibbutzim decimated by Hamas commandos on October 7 refused to host it. “We are each in our own mourning, each with our dead and our lost friends. Big ceremonies are really not necessary at this time,” says Brouria Carni Hadas, a member of Kerem Shalom, a kibbutz adjacent to the Gaza Strip.
“Before giving us answers about October 7, how did they let us down like this?”
Brouria Carni Hadas, member of a kibbutz near the Gaza Stripfranceinfo
In a letter addressed to the minister, families of the hostages say they refuse any use of photos of their loved ones, dead or alive, and even the use of their names and other details concerning them. “Before any other concern, the government must bring back the hostages”they write.
Families of the victims have announced that an alternative ceremony will be held in a Tel Aviv park, without the presence of politicians. Brouria Carni Hadas continues: “I don’t want ceremonies. I want explanations.” Of the 251 people abducted on October 7, 107 are still being held in Gaza and 35 are presumed no longer alive.
