▲ Aspect of yesterday’s vigil in Tel Aviv, an alternative event to the official ceremony.Photo Ap
Ap, Dpa and Afp
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, October 8, 2024, p. 22
Tel Aviv., Families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza protested yesterday near the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, while vigils were held in other parts of the country.
The meeting in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park was an alternative to the official government ceremony.
The families chose to avoid polarized Israeli politics to mark the somber anniversary.
The theme of the event was unity, with family members from the Jewish, Arab and Druze communities speaking alongside civilians and soldiers about the victims.
Before dawn, hundreds of relatives of those killed at the Nova music festival, during the attack launched by Hamas against northern Israel, a year ago, along with the president, Isaac Herzog, gathered in Reim, where at least 364 attendees were shot dead and many others were captured.
When we are here, we are close to our loved ones, this is the time when they danced and ran awaysaid Sigal Bar-On, whose niece, Yuval Bar-On, 25, and her fiancé, Moshe Shuva, 34, planned to marry last December.
As the sun rose, organizers played the same piece of trance music that was suddenly interrupted when the barrage of rockets began.
At 6:29 in the morning, when the Hamas attack began, those in attendance stood up and observed a moment of silence. A woman’s cry broke the silence as explosions from the fighting in Gaza could be heard a few kilometers away.
We are still trapped on October 7, 2023, in an endless day of terror, fear, anger, despairsaid Yuval Baron, whose father-in-law Keith Siegel is a hostage in Gaza.
The Tel Aviv ceremony was held in the largest concert venue in Israel, where the organizers distributed about 40,000 tickets.
But the event was limited to family members and the press due to military restrictions due to attacks against Israel.
Therefore, small groups of Israelis gathered to watch the ceremony live on giant screens in squares, schools and community centers throughout the country.
Relatives of those eliminated or kidnapped in the Hamas attack gathered in Tel Aviv last night to share memories of their loved ones and ask for the return of the captives.
The entire country awaits the next stage, that of our rehabilitationsaid Nitza Corngold, whose son Tal Shoham was captured during the events.
We know in our minds, our hearts, in every cell of our bodies: there will be no rehabilitation without the return of the hostages. AllCorngold added.
Israelis also attended ceremonies, cemeteries and memorials across the country to remember the hundreds of victims, the dozens of hostages still held captive and the soldiers wounded or killed while trying to save them.
Meanwhile, activists gathered yesterday morning at the Brandenburg Gate, in the center of Berlin, to read the names of the 1,170 people who died and the 255 kidnapped in the Hamas attack.
The reading of the names was part of an initiative that took place simultaneously in dozens of cities including Leipzig and Düsseldorf, in Germany, as well as in Warsaw, Belfast, Lima and New York.
The organizers indicated that the objective of the event was share the pain of the Jewish people, stand in solidarity with the Jewish State regardless of current politics, and raise our voices against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.