Caroline Baudry / Photo credits: AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP
Intense fighting raged Friday in and around the Gaza Strip’s largest cities, and 138 hostages were still being held in the Gaza Strip, two months after Hamas’ bloody attack on Israel. Three families of Israeli hostages tour internationally to beg for help. Europe 1 met them in Paris.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas entered its third month on Thursday. Although 105 people were released during the week-long truce at the end of November, 138 hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip. No new agreement is in sight for further releases, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So a delegation of three Israeli hostage families toured internationally to beg for help. After Washington two weeks ago, they went to Brussels and Paris.
“It’s not just Israel’s problem, it’s also Europe’s problem”
“I can’t sit down, I can’t collapse,” repeats Yanit Ashkenazi. Barely three hours after landing in Paris, the young woman begged for help to free Doron, 30 years old. “I don’t know if my little sister is alive. I don’t know if they raped my little sister. We’ve been hearing ‘we understand you’ for two months but if I, as a Jew, had to remove all the Jewish symbols that I was wearing as soon as I arrived in Paris, so it’s not only Israel’s problem, it’s also Europe’s problem. And tomorrow, it will be you.” she declares on the microphone of Europe 1.
“Qatar should not have it both ways”
Yonatan and Ido Shamriz accompany him. They also come from the decimated kibbutz of Kfar Aza. Their 26-year-old brother’s face is printed on their t-shirt, ‘bring back Alon’, it reads. “The French government could say to Qatar ‘listen, you cannot on the one hand buy football clubs here, and on the other finance terrorism’. This must be very clear: Qatar should not play on the two paintings,” they say.
These families, destitute, devastated, say they are trying the diplomatic route alone by banking on the influence of France and Europe to put pressure on Hamas.