The relatives of hostages held in Gaza have called on the newly elected Labour government to keep their plight at the top of their agenda.
At a demonstration on Parliament Square, a handful of hostages’ family members stood before a small sea of Israeli flags as Israeli street artist Benzi Brofman created an image of an hourglass with the sand running out.
Haya Langerman from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which organised the rally, said that hostages’ relatives were in the UK this week “with a call for Labour not to forget about the hostages and to act as much as they can to free the hostages as soon as possible”.
Demonstrators at Parliament Square call for the release of the 120 hostages still held in Gaza (Photo: Eliana Jordan)
Relatives of Guy Gilboa-Dalal, 22, Tamir Nimrodi, 19, Tal Haimi, 41, and the Bibas family spoke.
Among them was Ella Haimi, who earlier this month, gave birth to her fourth child. She was just three weeks pregnant when her husband Tal was murdered while fighting Hamas terrorists, and whose body was taken to Gaza.
“This is Lotan, the son he will never meet,” said, Ella holding the baby in her arms. “Tal died on October 7 and his body is held by Hamas. We need to give him the last honour he deserved and to bury him in Israel.”
Ella Haimi addresses the crowd at Parliament Square. She had just found out she was pregnant when her husband Tal was murdered by Hamas terrorists and his body taken into Gaza (Photo: Eliana Jordan)
Herut Nimrodi, the mother of hostage Tamir, spoke tearfully about her 19-year-old son, who was kidnapped from an army base near the Erez Crossing.
“Tamir is an IDF soldier who was part of the COGAT [Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories] organisation, which deals with human rights for the Palestinians, and he was taken by the terrorists of Hamas,” she said.
“We are here to make sure that nobody forgets them, and we ask you to keep our stories alive so that people remember that what is going on in Gaza now is all because of what happened on October 7.”
Langerman expressed the Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s concern over the news that Labour will restore funding to Gaza-based UN organisation UNRWA after former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cut UK support when allegations that members of its staff were involved in the October 7 attacks emerged earlier this year.
Demonstrators called on the new government not to forget about the hostages (Photo: Eliana Jordan)
Alongside the hourglass, Brofman’s yellow and black canvas depicted a crying teddy bear and several quotes provided by the hostages’ family members. It was signed by each family member present at the end of the demonstration and will be displayed in Israel.
Describing the painting, Brofman pointed out that in his rendering of the hourglass, “the sand is almost gone, and the glass is broken.”
He added that the depiction of the teddy bear, which is typically associated with children, is meant to represent the yearning of the hostages’ family members for their missing loved ones, regardless of their age. “For mothers and fathers and grandparents, their kids are always their kids, their grandchildren are always their grandchildren.”
Ella Haimi, wife of Tal Haimi, who was murdered on October 7 and whose body was abducted into Gaza, with her baby Lotan (Photo: Eliana Jordan)
On his recent visit to Israel, Foreign Secretary David Lammy met relatives of some of the hostages. He has called for an immediate ceasefire and the release of the 115 hostages still held in Gaza since October 7, when Hamas terrorists broke through the border and massacred 1,200 people and abducted around 250.
The bodies of five hostages – Oren Goldin, 33, Ravid Katz, 51, Maya Goren, 56, Sgt. Kiril Brodski,19, and Staff Sgt. Tomer Yaakov Ahimas, 20 – were recovered yesterday by the IDF.
