Relative of Hamas Victims Recounts How Her Life Has Changed Since October 7

Eve Hohman’s cousin and his eldest daughter were killed in the attack on their kibbutz. His wife and three of his children remained hostages of the terrorists for 51 days. The young French woman describes the “torture” of waiting, “the anguish, the fear, the dismay, the sadness”. She also confides that she now hides her confession, frightened by the “violent speeches” she hears.

November 25, 2023, Eve Hohman, a young French woman, expresses on the microphone of franceinfo her hope of seeing her loved ones who have been held hostage by Hamas since the 7th October released. “It’s torture, we don’t believe it until they’re here. But there is a little hope, we try to hold on to that” she confides.

The day before, November 24, 13 first hostages of the 252 that Hamas kidnapped on the 7th October after having massacred nearly 1 200 people have returned home. But the releases have been postponed several times. Eve, whose life in Paris has been on hold since the attack in Israel, hopes to see her cousin and her three little cousins, aged 17, 11 and 9, alive again. years old who were kidnapped after escaping the massacre in their kibbutz in Kfar Aza, located a few kilometers from Gaza. Her cousin’s husband and the couple’s eldest daughter were killed. Eve’s four relatives will finally be released on the 26th November after 51 days of captivity.

In recent months, Eve has visited them three times in Israel, an extremely moving reunion punctuated by their testimonies of the horror they endured during their captivity. Eve has set a rule for herself: “I don’t ask any questions. It’s really a code of conduct that we all have in the family. If they talk to us, obviously, we listen to them, we’re there. They have given a lot of testimony. I’ve read everything, I’ve watched everything. I’m aware of what they’ve experienced. I don’t think they’re telling everything. But that’s their business.”

His relatives told him that they changed location several times during their captivity. “At first it was in private houses and then in the famous tunnels”. His relatives detailed “the permanent absence of light, humidity, absence of food.” One story particularly touched Eve, “That’s what struck them the most too. They met young women who were alone, who were injured, who had suffered assaults, particularly sexual assaults, and who for the first time were seeing a mother, my cousin. They were very young women, 19 years old, 20 years old, 21 years old, and they could finally be in the arms of a mother and confide in them. Unfortunately, they are still there. My cousin and her daughter are haunted by this.”

The night of the 7th October had an impact on Eve’s life. There is a before and an after. “I feel an immense fragility and an immense strength. I feel completely different, in a way I can say broken, even if it is obviously nothing compared to what they have experienced. But in any case, there is a torrent of emotions, of anguish, of fear, of dismay, of sadness to see where the world is, where we are, in this region of the world. The war that followed, the tragedies that follow one another, it is every day a new stab that is planted in our hearts. And then the strength, because I am still standing too.” Standing up, because the terrorist attack and the captivity of his loved ones has “to land”. She thought about it night and day: “I was completely devastated, I worked as best I could, but I was really a different person. And afterwards, there was a form of post-trauma.”

The political and geopolitical context and in particular the divisions and fractures in French society surrounding this conflict are for Eve, “extremely difficult to live with” she confides, “because even I, while I am personally affected very closely, have the impression of managing to maintain a form of nuance, of being able to sympathize with the hostages and the victims of the war, of calling with my dearest wishes for a ceasefire, for this war to stop and for the hostages to be freed. And when I see that people who are very distant have such violent discourse, it overwhelms me, it upsets me, it shocks me.”

She herself admits, “Be careful now, which I never thought I would do in France”She specifies with a serious air that in concrete terms this means “I don’t say I’m Jewish anymore”Eve says she is careful for fear of being attacked or judged, but also emphasizes the many supports she has received and says she was very touched by the various gatherings against anti-Semitism on the 12th. November, 182 000 people, including 105 000 in Paris alone.