The funeral of so far the only Spanish victim, Maya Villalobo, in the war unleashed between Hamas and Israel, was celebrated on October 13, but its images were released several days later. The 19-year-old Spanish-Israeli girl was doing her military service at the Nahal Oz base, located a few kilometers from the border with Gaza, when Palestinian militants carried out their indiscriminate attacks on October 7.
The farewell took place in the military cemetery of Givatayim, a town near Tel Aviv, and was attended by his mother, Galit Sinvany, who resides in Israel with Villalobo, and his father, Luis Villalobo, displaced from Seville and in charge of find the strength to make an emotional speech dedicated to your little girl. “They have taken us away from you in a terrible way,” he said through tears, holding tightly to the arm of his ex-partner.
«Maya, this is not the way we want to have you, but we have no other choice, since we have been separated from you in a terrible way. “Such a good, beautiful person did not deserve this.” She has also assured that her daughter was always free to make her own decisions and that she was a vitalistic young woman, with all the strength in the world. “Maya, my love, we will no longer have that special complicity that no other father ever had with his daughter,” said Eduardo, professor of Microbiology at the University of Seville, the same one who contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when he did not have news of his daughter.
“We have a great void in our hearts, as great as the love that we profess for you, and that you correspond to both of us, as great as your immense heart that shines now like the most enormous galaxy in the Universe,” were Eduardo’s words. , which confirmed that Maya had planned to go to Seville for a few days the same week the conflict broke out.
🇪🇸🇮🇱 | This was the funeral of Maya Villalobo, the young woman from Seville who was murdered by Hamas while performing her military service in Israel. pic.twitter.com/XJ5PGRkiYv
— YoReposteo Noticias (@yoreposteo) October 19, 2023
«In Seville, we will no longer go on bus number five to Grandma Carmen’s house, who loves you so much, to celebrate her birthday, nor to celebrate Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve at the Titos’ house, you will no longer enjoy Triana and from the Center, from your favorite shops and bars, we will no longer be able to go and have gluten-free ‘tapitas’, a Verdejo and then an ice cream or, simply, have breakfast at our bar in the Triana market. You will have many movies left to see at the Avenida and the Nervión Plaza, enjoy Holy Week and the Fair, my daughter, as you liked the Fair, it will no longer be possible.
“At around eight in the afternoon every day is going to be hard,” his father said very excitedly. “I will no longer receive your calls, I will no longer go to pick you up in Madrid, we will no longer be able to walk there and look for new places to eat, no more musicals and shopping, we will no longer return together to Seville where you were so happy.”
“Your mark will remain for a lifetime”
«Maya, I am convinced that now you are going to do those things in a different way and I will be doing them with you. Have no doubt that I am going to do everything you like,” she told her daughter, to whom she said goodbye in the following way: “Maya, my darling, your imprint will remain throughout your life, all the time, you are the joy and the eternal smile that will last in our hearts. Maya Villalobo Sinvany, I love you madly, we all love you. Long live Maya forever.
Maya was doing her Israeli military service, mandatory for both sexes, in the 414th battalion, located at the Nahal Oz base. On the same October 7 that Hamas devastated everything in its path, traces of her were lost, opening the possibility that she was one of the 200 hostages that the Palestinian gang has in its power in Gaza, but four days later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed his death.
The hard and emotional speech that Maya Villalobo’s parents dedicated to their daughter on the day of the funeral.
The 19-year-old Spanish girl was in Israel at the time of the Hamas offensive. pic.twitter.com/nl2o9aV36p
—Oh! Journalist! (@OhJournalist) October 18, 2023
The Government, in a statement, once again reiterated its “strongest condemnation of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel” and expressed its “deepest regret and all its condolences to the family and relatives for the death of Maya Villalobo Sinvany.” Following the news, the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, also conveyed his condolences to the relatives of the deceased and pointed out that “nothing justifies a terrorist attack.”
Hamas militiamen entered these Jewish military facilities and kidnapped several Israeli soldiers, as could be seen in several videos released after the operation by the Ezedín Al-Qassam brigades. Dozens of attackers took over the base after sneaking through a border fence. Since then his whereabouts were unknown.
The case of Iván Illarramendi
There is another Spaniard sadly protagonist in this war that shakes the world. Is about Ivan Illarramendi, a native of Zarautz, who along with his wife Dafna Garkovich, of Chilean origin, were kidnapped from their Kisufim kibbutz, in the northwest of Israel. Their situation was confirmed when Israel included the Spanish flag in a video in which it published the nationalities of those kidnapped by Hamas.
«We don’t like the word kidnapped, for cases like Dafna and Iván we use the word ‘disappeared’ because we have not received any proof of life. We hope that a ceasefire will be declared soon so that an international organization such as the Red Cross can enter and contact them,” says Danny Garkovich, Illarramendi’s father-in-law, through an interview with this newspaper via Zoom. Between daily work, funerals and meetings with the hostages’ families, there are not enough hours in the day for him.
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