In the Nir Oz kibbutz, near the Gaza Strip, dawn never came on Saturday. Dozens of Hamas members entered the community, of only 350 residents, and destroyed everything, including its botanical garden. Haim Perry lived there, an 80-year-old Israeli retiree who is currently among the hostages of the terrorist organization whose release is being negotiated tirelessly.
His daughter, Noam, desperately asked for help yesterday, although without providing images of her family. «They killed my friends, people I grew up with. There is not a single family on the kibbutz that came out unscathed. Everyone I know has at least one family member kidnapped or brutally murdered. The houses have been burned…” Her story is shocking. And the data confirms it, 20 residents were murdered during the assault and 80 kidnapped.
Since then, Noam has not heard from his father again. “It has been five long days and sleepless nights,” she lamented to the international media at a press conference organized by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs this Wednesday. Through tears, she has defined him as a “loving husband and a wonderful grandfather” who is missed by his 5 children and 13 grandchildren.
His kidnapping was, furthermore, a heroic action. Apparently, when Haim heard the terrorists enter his house, he tried to hold them off, giving his wife time to hide. She remained like that for several hours and witnessed how her husband was arrested. Her testimony has been key to knowing the whereabouts of this man, one of the dozens of elderly people in the hands of Hamas.
peace activist
Haim’s sin, it seems, is simply being Israeli. According to his daughter, he is an “innocent and defenseless” civilian. Throughout his life he has been a peace activist and he was one of those volunteers who took his car to transport sick children and adults from the Gaza Strip to Israeli hospitals. However, his kindness has not helped him avoid destiny.
For this reason, his daughter asks for international help to free him. Not only him, but also the rest of the hostages, an operation that is carried out with great care. “I ask for help for our loved ones,” Noam cried. “I know that you and your governments can make a difference and save their lives,” he stressed to the media.
150 hostages pending a ground offensive
Hamas claims to have no less than 150 hostages in its possession. Many are Israelis who lived in villages near the Gaza border, but there are also people of other nationalities. Among them would be the Basque who appears missing, Iván Illarramendi, who lived with his wife in a kibbutz that was massacred on Saturday by terrorists.
The jihadist organization’s idea is to exchange these people for Palestinians detained and imprisoned in Israel on terrorism charges. However, the negotiations are arduous and the Israeli government itself assures that it is not yet the time to sit down and negotiate this. “We will get to that when we finish the military operation,” said the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lior Hayat.
We will therefore have to wait for Israel to launch its ground offensive against Gaza and stabilize the area, which are the plans of the new emergency government formed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Meanwhile, the relatives of the missing mourn their absence.
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