On January 14, Hamas released a video showing Noa, Yossi and another hostage, Itay Svirsky.
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They read off a script obviously written by Hamas, telling Israel to stop the war and to save them. The same thing was said in earlier videos of other hostages. The message is always the same: stop the war, or we will kill your hostages. But never: if you stop the war, we will release the hostages and negotiate. Because that is not what their goal is.
To understand this, you must realize the fundamental reason of Hamas’ existence is jihad: a holy war against everything that isn’t radical Islam, and especially Jews. This principle trumps everything, even the lives of the Gazan people, peace and a chance for their own state. This kind of thinking is so alien to us in the West that we cannot believe this is really their mindset. I couldn’t believe it for twenty years living in Israel. Until October 7.
At the end of this video, Hamas showed this:
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This is psychological warfare of the highest degree. The entire country is in mental and emotional anguish. It is very, very hard to deal with this kind of cruelty. It is a game that they play, to inflict the worst pain on us. They know we care desperately about these people. They also know that we cannot do this sort of things back to them – it goes against every principle of humanity. Also, they would laugh at us. They don’t care! They care about exterminating Jews and establising the Islamic State. At any cost. Even if every single Palestinian has to die for it.
How do you negotiate with people like that? You can’t. It’s impossible. The only thing they want is our death. That is why we have to conquer Hamas. If we fail, we will not only sign our own death warrant, but Europe’s, too.
Yesterday, 15/1/24, Hamas released another video. This time, it was only of Noa, who told us that Yossi and Itay were dead. According to the script she read, they were killed in an Israeli airstrike. We don’t know if this is true or if they were simply murdered by Hamas. At the end of the video, they showed two bloody and broken bodies. It was impossible to tell who they were. I haven’t watched it. But this is what I heard.
For all of their families, the excruciating pain goes on. They don’t know anything for sure. All they have is questions, which won’t be answered. Noa is alive, for now. I think that the civilians who captured her, sold her to Hamas. And they know that Noa one of the most famous hostages and that she is precious to us. They can use her as leverage. Although what they want from us is impossible.They want for Israel to cease existing and for every Jew to die. We obviously cannot let that happen.
The only thing we can hope is that the IDF will conquer Hamas, find the hostages and bring them home. Soon. Then, we can talk with the Gazans and see how to move on from here. But not before.
(This is my video about the Bedouin victims of Hamas.)
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28 Bedouin Israelis were killed by terrorists and rockets on October 7. Another 7 were taken hostage. Two of them, minors, were released during the ceasefire and one is known to have been killed in Gaza. The rest still languishes underground.
An estimated 200,000 Bedouins live in Israel, most of them in the Negev desert. They are a group of historically nomadic tribes, who used to roam the entire Arab peninsula and North Africa. Since the beginning of the 20th century, most Bedouins are no longer nomadic, but live in camps, villages and towns. Ethnically Arabs, they are Muslims and speak an Arabic dialect. However, they do not consider themselves Palestinians. They call themselves “Negev Arabs”. They live not only in Israel, but also in Jordan and in the Sinai pensinsula of Egypt.
I have always thought of Bedouins as the Gypsies / Travellers of the Middle East, and there are some similarities between the two groups. Like Gypsies, Bedouins hold on tightly to their culture and identity, even while surrounded by the modern world. Some things have had to change, but their distinct customs and lifestyle are very important to them. They have their own laws and codes of conduct, which are based on Islam. Their system is complicated and I don’t know much about it, but I know that kinship ties and honour codes are extremely important to them, and that their hospitality and their pita bread are famous.
Because they live mainly in the Negev desert in designated towns and villages, I don’t meet many Bedouins. But since I started my small hobby farm and taking in rescue animals, I have had some interaction with them. Some of those were positive, like the time when we went to a Bedouin town to buy a saddle and they proudly showed us their amazing, home-bred Arab horses, complete with beautifully decorated tack. And others less so, like when I sold a (different) saddle online and a group of four Bedouin men came over and basically intimidated me into accepting a much lower offer than I wanted. Well, you live and learn, and I wrote this down to male bullying more than anything else.
Bedouins were historically dependent on their animals to survive. For thousands of years, they relied on their camels for transport, milk and meat. I don’t know anyone who can handle a camel except the Bedouins. I am used to large animals, but I treat camels with extreme caution. They are amazing but so strange to me! I have no idea how they work. Whenever we go for trips to the desert, my face is glued to the window looking for Bedouin camps with camels and especially, horses.
Arab horses are world renowned for their beauty, speed and strength. They are like the Jaguar of horses. And these magnificent creatures just live by Bedouin tents, between the goats, kids riding them bareback. Sometimes you see people riding on the streets, parading proudly with beautiful, coloured tack and decorations.
If Arab horses are the Jaguars of the horse world, Saluki dogs are the Jaguars of dogs. The Saluki is a breed that was traditionally used by Bedouins for hunting. These days, hunting is illegal in Israel, so anyone using their dogs to hunt runs the risk of the dogs getting confiscated. You don’t see Salukis much anymore. The breed that is now mostly associated with Bedouins is the Cana’an dog, a breed that is extremely watchful and makes great guard dogs. I should know, because I have Cana’an mix and he never stops barking.
Now, the Bedouins are famous for their animal breeding and riding skills – but not always for their animal-friendliness. I have three rescue donkeys that have escaped from Bedouin villages. Two of them are terrified of people, full of scars and obviously traumatized. Sadly, donkeys are the dregs of the farm world. They have mostly been replaced by tractors and trucks, but are sometimes still used by Bedouins for riding, carrying burdens and pulling carts. They are frequently overloaded, mistreated and neglected, sometimes even subjected to extreme and malicious abuse. This is obviously not limited to Bedouins – people everywhere abuse animals. But there are several practices common amongst Bedouins that I consider problematic.
One of them is tying the legs of animals together. Traditionally, Bedouins don’t build fences and let their animals roam freely to find food for themselves. But obviously, they can’t go too far or run away when their owners come to get them. So their legs are tied together in such a way that they can walk small distances to graze, but not run. This is done to all animals: goats and sheep, camels, horses, donkeys. I have seen camels with all four legs and their head tied together. They could only hobble a few paces.
I don’t like it, but if this is done safely and with wide leather straps, I wouldn’t consider it abuse. But often, it is done with straw twine, which cuts into their legs and leaves wounds that never heal. These poor animals suffer constant pain. All my donkeys have these scars on their legs – except the one who was born in my care. One of them also has scars on his chest, probably from pulling a cart with an ill-fitting harness. Donkeys are extremely sensitive and intelligent animals. They figure out how to beat the system and untangle themselves. And when they’re gone, they’re gone. They remember everything and they will never go back to owners who abused them. So they start roaming. They walk along the roads and often end up in kibbutzim, where there are fields and horses. That way, I have now gathered three rescue donkeys – they were found wandering around, alone and hungry, with wounds on their legs. They have become less afraid with time, but they will never fully trust any human.
There are several large scale donkey sanctuaries in Israel. The most famous ones are Pegasus, Starting Over and Safe Haven for Donkeys. These people do incredible work that is vastly underrated. Donations and publicity are always greatly appreciated.
But I digress! I will get off my animal care soapbox now and concentrate on human rights. Because Bedouins and modern Israeli society do not always mesh well. Most Bedouins live in towns in the Negev, like Rahat or Tel Sheva. But there are many illegal villages, where the desert people decided to build their tents and huts, as is their tradition. But the land does not belong to them and the state does not recognize these villages. As a result, these places lack basic necessities like electricity, plumbing and, most importantly, bomb shelters and sirens. They are also not covered by the Iron Dome, the rocket interception system which keeps most of Israel safe from bombs launched at us from Gaza and Lebanon.
On the 7th of October, 2023, Hamas started their deadly invasion with a barrage of rockets shot into Israel. As many of the Bedouin villages do not have bomb shelters, seven people were killed by the impact of rockets. Six of those were children, and one a grandmother. This is absolutely heartbreaking. It is unacceptable that people have to live in this country without adequate protection against rockets. Hamas has been throwing rockets at us since 2005, when Israel left Gaza. You’d think every square inch of the country would be protected by now.
Malik, Jawad, Mohammed and Amin Al-Gourhan. Four children killed by a single rocket launched from Gaza.
Apart from casualties by rocket impacts, Hamas murdered 21 Bedouin Israelis. Some Bedouins serve in the Israeli army, but most of those killed on October 7 were civilians. Not that Hamas cared. They destroyed everything in their path.
Fatma Alttalaqat, 35, was a Bedouin mother of nine children. She was on the way to work with her husband and baby, when Hamas terrorists stopped the car and shot her point blank. Her body was found riddled with 40 bullets. She leaves a broken family behind, who cannot comprehend how Palestinians could shoot an innocent woman wearing a hijab in cold blood. I can’t either. It is inhuman.
I found no photo of Fatma, because Bedouins do not like publishing photos, especially not of women. The one exception was Aisha Alziadne, out of necessity.
Four members of the same Bedouin family, the Alziadne clan, were abducted by Hamas. Youssef Alziadne has worked in the dairy farm of kibbutz Holit for seventeen years. When they were old enough, three of his children, Hamza, Bilal and Aisha, starting working with him. On October 7, they were all at work when the terrorists invaded kibbutz Holit. At the end of the day, all four were marked as missing. Later, they were seen in security footage, being led into Gaza on foot. Their status was adjusted to hostages.
A member of the same family, Abed Alrahman Ataf Alziadne, 26, was killed on Zikim Beach. Just like Fatma Alttalaqat, his body was absolutely riddled with bullets. He was machine gunned to death by rabid lunatics. It is horrific.
After 7 weeks of captivity, minors Aisha and Bilal were released. But Hamza and Youssef remain in the tunnels of Hamas. Their extensive family is terrified for them. Youssef has two wives and 19 children. He suffers from diabetes and his family is worried that he does not have his medication. Hamza is married and a father of two children. He suffers from migraines and does not have his medication either.
Other than the Alziadne family, there are three more Bedouin hostages. One of them was Samer Talalka. On December 15, Samer managed to escape his prison together with two other Israeli hostages. They tried to get the IDF to notice and rescue them, but instead, the IDF soldiers thought they were being ambushed and shot them. Tragically, the three were killed by fire from their own army. The absolute last thing anyone wanted.
One of the other Bedouin hostages remains unnamed, at the request of his family. The last one is Hisham al-Sayed, who has been held captive by Hamas since 2015.
One other victim of Hamas that I want to mention is Osama Abu Assa. Osama was a Bedouin man from Tel Sheva, who worked as a security guard near kibbutz Re’im. In the early morning of October 7, he was returning home from his night shift when the sirens started wailing. He ran for a bomb shelter and hid there with other people. A security camera recorded the entire sequence of events. I saw the beginning of the video. The terrorists started firing into the bomb shelter and shouting for people to come out. Osama ran out, ducking to avoid the bullets flying around him. He shouted at them that all the people in the shelter were Arabs, that they were all civilians, women and children. This was not true, the other people in the shelter were Jews. Osama saved their lives. But he paid for it with his own life. The terrorists started beating him up. I couldn’t continue watching at that point, but I know they violently beat him, forced him to undress and robbed him of all his valuables – before finally executing him. Knowing this makes me sick to my stomach. What a horrendous, senseless murder. Osama was a good man who protected innocent people. Why? Why did they kill him? It is pure evil.
There is a twist to this story. Osama belonged to a large family clan with a lot of influence in the Bedouin community. His family has sworn bloody revenge and had offered a reward of 1 million dollars for information leading to Osama’s murderers. In an interview with Ynet, Osama’s brother, Joad Abu Assa, told the interviewer:
“(…) this is a blood feud – these people tortured him and it’s not a simple matter. My Bedouin, Druze and Jewish friends approached me asking to help us. If their families don’t fear us, they’ll do it again and again because this is a blood feud. Bedouins in Israel kill one another over trivialities all the time, so don’t you expect everyone, and the world, to rise up in this case?”
About Hamas, Joad Abu Assa said:
“Hamas is a crime syndicate, not a state working against a state. People there murder people for money and their own interests. This isn’t about a state or the war, this is about the people there. They only want more money and then fire rockets at Israel so that it has a chance to take a picture of a dead Palestinian child and show the world. We know this and we’ve had enough of Hamas, ISIS, and their violence. It’s not only about my brother, we’re aching for the Jewish children who were murdered as well, and the 80-year-old woman who was abducted, who does something like this?”
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“(…) their Islam doesn’t represent us, they’re not true Muslims. A Muslim doesn’t murder, they hide behind our Islamic religion, ours is a religion of peace and respect. Our religion tells us not to murder. It says much, but not to torture.”
I know I shouldn’t want revenge. I should want peace for everyone involved. And I do. But this, coming from an Israeli Bedouin, really lifts my spirit. I know about blood feuds. They’re seriously scary. But instead of fighting each other, the Negev Bedouins now have a common enemy: Hamas. They understand Arab culture in a way we don’t. And they are armed and ready. They are not done with Hamas.
Today, the hostages have been in captivity for 100 days. Most of the minors and their mothers, and elderly women, as well as most Thais and the 2 Filipinos, were released during the ceasefire after 7 weeks. But 136 living people are still assumed to be held prisoner in Gaza. Some of the hostages have died (were murdered) and their bodies are known to still be held captive, like Joshua Mollel, whose bloody murder was broadcast by Hamas. Some are known to be seriously injured, like Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose arm was blown off during an explosion on October 7. Some are only teenagers, like Eden Alexander, who is 19 years old. Some are very old, like Oded Lifschitz, 83.
Some of those who are still being held are friends or family members of my friends. Like Noa Argamani, who is my friend’s cousin. Like Ofer Calderon, David Cunio and Ariel Cunio, who are friends of my friends.
There have been practically no signs of life. A few weeks back, Hamas released a video of three of the oldest hostages, Haim Peri (79), Yoram Metzger (80) and Amiram Cooper (84). They were sitting in a row in front of the camera, looking thin and weak, with long beards. They pleaded with the Israeli government to stop the war and rescue them. Of course, they had been told exactly what to say by men with automatic guns, so we have no idea what they actually wanted to say.
This kind of thing has the dual effect of raising our hopes – they’re alive! – and feeding our anxiety: time is running out. It’s a known tactic of psychological warfare. It is entirely possible that these three elderly men were executed immediately after the recording of that video.
I hope to heaven that this is not what happened. I hope the majority of the hostages are alive and will one day be found safe and brought back home. But sometimes, I wonder if any of them are still alive right now. And if they are, what hell are they going through? We know from the released hostages that they were kept in harsh circumstances, fed very little and threatened constantly. Some men were beaten with electric cables. Some women were kept in cages and sexually assaulted, over and over again.
Some were not even abducted by Hamas at all. Some were taken by Islamic Jihad, another terror organization. And some were taken by civilians, who followed Hamas out of the gates and joined cheerfully in the plunder, murder and destruction. These civilians chose young girls and women to kidnap for themselves. No one knows where they are, but we can guess what is being done to them. Sexual violence was a big part of the October 7 massacre. It is no secret that many bodies were found naked and bleeding, gangraped violently and then shot. Hamas member have bragged about raping Israeli women.
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But somehow, this is still being contested by the world. Somehow, people all over the world manage to turn this atrocity around and twist it. Humans everywhere love to blame Jews. It has always been like this in history and these times are no exception. We are apparently to blame for progroms and holocausts, for hatred and massacres, just because we are Jews and we should not be wherever we are. People manage to justify to themselves what Hamas has done. They want to absolve their guilty conscience by saying: “Well, the Jews had it coming.” And they cheerfully campaign for Palestine, donate to Gaza (which all goes straight to Hamas), walk around with kefiyahs on their heads and feel like cool, edgy, progressive humans.
You’re not. You’re antisemites and neo-Nazis. Just a few days ago, someone from my own country stole my words, twisted them around and gleefully managed to suggest that not only did we have it coming, but Israel orchestrated the attack themselves, just to have an excuse to “commit genocide” in Gaza.
I have never been so ashamed to be Dutch in my life. People like this make me sick. They are holocaust deniers, victim blamers and no better than the Death Eaters themselves. But I know what is going to happen. Hamas has said it themselves, numerous times: the West is next. One day very soon, things like this will happen in Europe. Then, these people will finally start to realize that radical Islam is a horrific evil that wants to conquer the world and destroy everyone that doesn’t live exactly according to their draconian rules. But then, it will be too late.
I want to take this opportunity to draw attention to the women and children still in the hands of Gazans, and likely subjected to physical, sexual and psychological violence. Is this what you want? Is this what you want to see in your own country? To them, women are objects. Trophies, to be owned, stolen and discarded as they please. We need to fight this evil and make sure they do not conquer Europe! Because no matter what I shout, I care deeply about my old country. My heart breaks to see it slowly being subjected to Sharia law. As much as it breaks for these beautiful women. Please, please help us bring them home. Raise your voice. Say NO. This is evil, no matter what your race, religion or nationality is.
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Liri, Karina, Daniela, Carmel, Arbel, Eden, Amit, Noa, Agam, Naama, Romi and Doron are still being held hostage. 100 days.
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Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas are still not back home. Kfir recently turned one year old. He has been captive for 100 days of his short little life.
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Look them in the eyes, these young girls. See what the Death Eaters did to them. And then stand behind that with a clear conscience. I dare you.
Vivian Silver was born in 1949 in Winnipeg, Canada, and immigrated to Israel in 1974. She settled in kibbutz Gezer and soon became the leader of the community. She was an energetic person with strong beliefs and a natural sense of justice. In the early days, Vivian activated for gender equality and women’s rights. She worked in the Knesset for the Committee of the Advancement of Women in Work and Economy, and she founded the United Kibbutz Movement’s Department to Advance Gender Equality.
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In 1990, Vivian and her husband moved to kibbutz Be’eri with their two sons. It was there, in close proximity to Gaza and the Bedouin community of Israel, that she became a peace activist. Together with Amal Elsana Alh’jooj, an Arab Israeli woman, she founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation. This centre focuses on improving Arab-Jewish relations and a better understanding between Palestinians and Israelis. In 2010, they received the Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East.
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Apart from her work in the kibbutz and with the Centre, Vivian also volunteered with Road to Recovery, a project that transports sick people from Gaza to hospitals in Israel. In 2014, after another war with Gaza, she founded Women Wage Peace. This organization brings together women of different backgrounds and strives for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The organization has more than 20,000 members. They organize rallies, marches and other activities to pressure the Israeli government to work towards peace. Vivian also joined in the protests against Benjamin Netanyahu and his government and the planned judicial overhaul, as many Israelis did (including me). She was strongly opposed to Netanyahu’s politics.
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On October 4, 2023, just three days before Hamas’ attack on Israel, Woman Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, a Palestinian organization, joined together in a march for peace in Jerusalem. Vivian, 74 years old, was there, as always.
On October 7, Vivian Silver was alone at her home in kibbutz Be’eri. When she realized that the kibbutz was under attack by terrorists, she hid in a closet and began texting her family and friends. Her son describes their text messages. She told him that she loved him, and then she wrote: “They’re inside the house. It’s time to stop joking and to say goodbye.”
Her son wrote: “I love you mum, I’m with you.”
She answered: “I feel you.”
That was Vivian’s last message. After that, there was silence.
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In the evening, Vivian’s house was found completely trashed and burned out. Vivian was nowhere to be found and she was assumed to be a hostage. But five weeks later, Vivian’s remains were finally identified in her house. She had been murdered in cold blood and burned to ashes, by the very people she had worked so hard, all her life, to help and to forge bonds with.
Hamas didn’t care who Vivian was. It didn’t matter to them that she had dedicated her life to peace and better treatment of the Palestinians. They couldn’t care less. And that is because they do not want peace. Their goal is to destroy the Jews, not to make peace with them. Vivian was their enemy.
Vivian was mourned intensely by many. She was loved fiercely by hundreds of people and admired by thousands. Her funeral was attended by all her friends, her family and all the women and men she inspired, of many different backgrounds. Her son, Jonathan Zeigen, said: “It was not just me that was orphaned. The community you helped was as well. Your friends were orphaned. This country you adopted at a young age was orphaned. And your movement was orphaned. The movement of peace.”
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Women Wage Peace promised that the peace movement was not dead. That they would continue their work without Vivian. They knew that even now, especially now, Vivian would be calling for peace, for agreement, for understanding.
Vivian was an immeasurably better person than me. I have always believed that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was possible. That we just had to get rid of our rotten government, implement the two-state solution, and we would be able to achieve peace. After all, the Palestinians are just people, like us. Why would they not want peace? They just want to live their lives, like we do.
But now, I’m not so sure. I did not reckon with the pure hate the Palestinians have for us. How much Hamas controls their lives. How they are groomed and brainwashed since early childhood to hate and fear Jews. How they are told to sacrifice their lives to kill Jews. How can you make peace with people whose only goal in life is to kill you?
Still, I admire Vivian Silver, and all that she stands for. Rest in peace, Vivian, or, as one of your friends put it: Rest in power.
Nir Am is a kibbutz at the border with Gaza, close to the town of Sderot. It has a population of around 600 people. It has agriculture fields and a dairy farm, a cutlery factory, a country lodge and a museum. The kibbutz also employs workers from Gaza, as many of the kibbutzim on the border do (or did).
The kibbutz security team consists of twelve people, who are all men, except for their commander. The leader of this team is Inbal Rabin-Liberman, a 26 year old woman who served in a combat unit in the IDF. In 2022, she took over the task from her uncle, Ami Rabin.
On October 7, Inbal was woken up at 6:30 by sirens and alerts from the national security, telling the people of the kibbutz to go into the shelters and safe rooms. This was not an uncommon occurance in this part of the country. The missiles shot at them from Gaza were usually (but not always) diffused by the Iron Dome defense system.
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But Inbal heard noises outside that she didn’t trust. She saw trucks driving around, up to the kibbutz gate and back again. She had a gut feeling that there was something worse going on today. So she called the members of her security team and told them to come and get weapons and then stationed them around the perimeter of the kibbutz. When the electricity failed, she told them not to turn it back on again, so the electric gates of the kibbutz would not open.
Because of the defense team’s quick action, Hamas was unable to enter the kibbutz. Several terrorists trying to scale the fence were shot by the security squad. The stories of this fight vary widely. Some articles say the fight lasted 12 hours, 25 terrorists were killed and Inbal shot 5 of them herself, but others report that it lasted 3 hours and only two terrorists were killed. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But what is certain is that Inbal’s gut feeling and quick thinking saved kibbutz Nir Am.
Hamas was not able to enter kibbutz Nir Am, thanks to the armed volunteers stationed around the kibbutz at the fence. No one was hurt or abducted. Nir Am is the only kibbutz in the Gaza Envelope that wasn’t ruined, massacred and burned. And Inbal was hailed as a hero.
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But Inbal does not want this praise. She says she didn’t do anything special, she was just one of the many. So I will just repeat Inbal’s own words on Instagram:
“I see everything you write to me, and I want to tell you that you shouldn’t believe everything that’s written. There is a lot of fake news among the reports. I’m not a hero, and I wasn’t there by myself. I still can’t make sense of everything I’m going through, and therefore I can’t tell the real story – but I promise you will hear from me. So many people are still in the field fighting for their lives, and there were a lot more, fighting next to me and around me. I would like you to share this story in order to convey a message. Let’s engage in the important things, not in bombastic headlines.”
I decided to honour Inbal’s words, and not call this article “The Heroine of Nir Am”. Because there is another story that needs to be told, too.
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The terrorists did not get inside the kibbutz iself. But the fields and the chicken hatchery that belonged to the kibbutz were unprotected. And that morning, several people were already at work there. They were from Gaza, workers with a special day pass, who went back and forth between their homes in Gaza and their jobs in Israel. A lot of Palestinians work in Israel, from both Gaza and the West Bank. Like the Thais, they often work in agriculture and construction.
Hashim and Nabil al-Birawi are two brothers who worked in the fields of Nir Am for decades. They had a good relationship with their employers. “They treated us like family there,” Nabil says in +972 magazine. On the morning of October 7, Nabil and his team were already at work in the fields, while Hashim and his workers were still on the road, in a grey van driven by an Israeli Arab driver.
Hashim called his employer, Lior Golan, and told him he and the others had been shot by a “terrorist who came from the sky in a parachute.” Golan told them to run, to hide in the fields, but they couldn’t. They were too badly hurt. Later that day, the grey van was discovered with all its occupants shot dead.
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Nabil al-Birawi and his team hid in the orchards for 11 hours. Three of the workers were hit by bullets. In the evening, Ofer Liberman, Inbal’s father, was able to reach the workers and take the wounded to the hospital.
Nabil has been stuck in Israel since, along with many other Palestinian workers. He mourns the death of his brother and is desperate to correct the initial assumption that the people in the grey van were terrorists. They were all victims of Hamas. Like the 1200 Israelis who were murdered. Hamas killed anything on its path, like a war machine, like a natural disaster.
This is Avigail Idan. She’s four. Can anyone tell me what kind of threat a four year old baby poses for the two-state solution? What type of terrible power did she have that justifies executing her parents and trying to take her out, too, Voldemort style? Does Avigail hold the key to the freedom of the Palestinian people?
Of course not, and the freedom of the Palestinian people is not what concerns Hamas. The terror organization of Hamas has only one ultimate goal: the establishment of the Islamic State. That means 1. the total destruction of Israel and all Jews on the planet and 2. conquering the entire world until every single person is under radical Islamic control. Sounds fun? Not really. But because these goals are kind of hard to reach, in the mean time, they will satisfy themselves by inflicting as much death, pain and destruction on Israel as they possibly can. Go to town, boys! You can do anything you like to them. Really live out those sadistic fantasies. That’s what I imagine Yahya Sinwar said to them. Or, as I prefer to call him: You-Know-Who.
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On October 7, Avigail Idan was three years old. She lived in kibbutz Kfar Aza with her father, Roee, her mother, Smadar, and her 2 siblings, Michael and Amalia. Roee Idan was a photojournalist for the news website Ynet. On the morning of October 7, he actually went outside with a camera and filmed the arrival of the terrorists in paragliders. This is a still from one of his videos, as published on Ynet:
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At the end of the video, Roee drops the camera and starts running. He runs home, grabs his wife and children, tells them to run, to hide, that terrorists are flooding into their kibbutz. But they would not get far. Hamas gunmen broke into their home at that very moment and opened fire. Smadar collapsed. The two older children ran and hid in a closet. Roee, who was holding Avigail, was shot too, and fell to the ground, covering Avigail with his body.
The murderers must have thought they had shot Avigail too, because they left. But Avigail was unhurt. She crawled out from under her father’s body, covered in his blood. She fled in terror and ran to her neighbours’ house, the Brodutch family. Hagar Brodutch took Avigail into the safe room with her own three children, while her husband went out to fight. But when Avihai Brodutch came back to his house, he found his wife, his three children and Avigail missing. They had all been abducted to Gaza. Avigail was gone, in the hands of the monsters who murdered her family.
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The Brodutch family: Hagar, Avihai, Ofri (10), Yuval (9) and Oriya (4).
Avigail and the Brodutches were in captivity for 50 days. Avigail turned four years old on November 24. US president Joe Biden took a specific interest in Avigail, because she has dual citizenship with ties to Arizona, and because of her status an an orphan. “What she endured is unthinkable,” he said.
Avihai Brodutch was in a way the opposite of an orphan: a father whose family was torn away from him. He didn’t know what to do. So he went to Tel Aviv with his dog, Rodney, and sat in front of the Ministry of Defense. He waited for 50 days.
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On November 26, the third day of the ceasefire, Avigail and the Brodutches were finally released. The reunion of Hagar and the children with their father and their dog was one of the most healing, wholesome things I have ever seen. Their joy made the whole country smile through their tears.
But Avigail Idan had no parents to come back to. She was welcomed by her extended family, her grandparents and her aunt and uncle. I was touched to the heart to see her smile, holding the hand of her aunt, who looks remarkably like her.
Her grandparents and aunt are now taking care of her and her siblings. They are all traumatized beyond anything we could ever imagine. How can young children even understand such horror? I can’t understand it either, and I’m 49.
I can only hope that the children and the whole family will receive all the help they need and will eventually be able to heal from this. We love you, Abigail. You are the Girl Who Lived.
I want you to meet Mosab Hassan Yousef, also known as “The Green Prince”. He is the son of one of the founders of Hamas. His story is incredible and what he has to say is hugely important. He has been very vocal in denouncing Hamas and supporting Israel for years. To me, he is a fascinating person. His sharp intellect and his courage are remarkable, and we can learn so much from his insights. If we choose to listen, and not turn the other way, because we don’t like the picture he is painting.
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Mosab Hassan Yousef was born in the West Bank in 1978. While growing up, his ambition was to become a “freedom fighter”, as so many Palestinian children’s was. But his life went differently. After witnessing the cruelty, brutality and terror that Hamas subjected their OWN people to, he started thinking differently. He became an informant for the Israeli intelligence.
Over the years, he has prevented countless suicide and terror attacks, earning himself the nickname “the Green Prince” (the colour of the Palestinian flag and his status as the son of a sheikh). Many of us owe him our lives and we don’t even know it. Jews, Israeli Arabs, foreign workers, tourists – everyone. Hamas does not distinguish. Their goal is to eradicate the state of Israel, kill every single Jew on the planet and then establish the Islamic State. They will use any means necessary, including using their own people as a human shield.
We know this because Yousef, and other people like him, told us, again and again. Yousef wrote a book, “Son of Hamas”, and a documentary was made about him: “The Green Prince”. Now, he is raising his voice again to tell the international community what we already know. He is putting himself in extreme danger to say these things. Hamas wants his blood like they want ours. He now lives in the USA, for his own safety.
This is an interview with Mosab Hassan Yousef by Piers Morgan, on October 26, 2023.
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It’s not just Youssef’s sharpness and his bravery that impress me. It is his humanity. He is driven by his love for the Palestinian people. He wants to see them free and in peace. Free from Hamas’ reign of terror. He wants to say his truth, and say it loudly. Listen to him.
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I agree with him. Hamas cannot be forgiven for what they did to us on October 7. We can never forget, and never forgive. They must be destroyed. Not only for us, but for the entire world. As Mosab Hassan Yousef says: “If Israel fails in Gaza, all of us will be next.”
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