Israeli ambassador reveals family got caught in pro-Palestine ‘hate convoy' - The Jewish Chronicle

Israel’s ambassador to the UK has spoken of her family's terrifying experience during the May 2021 Israel-Hamas war when their car got caught in the pro-Palestine 'hate convoy' in north London.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Tzipi Hotevely, recalled how her husband, Or Alon, had been driving with the couple’s three daughters, aged four, six and eight, when they found themselves surrounded by cars making rape threats against Jewish girls.

“While my husband was driving with my daughters they were surrounded by these cars," Hotevely said. "They were saying horrible things about raping the daughters of the Jewish community, which is really outrageous.

"For him, listening to those megaphones, it was really worrying that it happened in the middle of Finchley Road in London in broad daylight.”

To date, no-one has been successfully prosecuted from the convoy.

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Ambassador Hotovely with her husband Or Alon and their three children aged four, six and eight (Photo by MART photography/Tammy Shefler Kazhdan)

Hotovely, a former settlements minister and deputy foreign minister in Israel, has also received extensive personal abuse during her time in London, encountering hostile demonstrators who have tried to break up meetings she has addressed. Two years ago she had to be escorted by police out of a debate at LSE as demonstrators surrounded her official car.

The ambassador admitted that juggling her demanding role while bringing up three daughters was often challenging, adding that when the family first arrived in London she had once turned up at the girls’ school at half term — to find the school was closed.

The ambassador also used the interview to reiterate her government’s frequent warnings about the danger of Iran.

She said: “This is my main message about Iran — this is a threat to the UK as much as it is a threat to Israel.”

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Ambassador Hotovely pictured with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2019 (Photo by Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)

Hotovely noted that inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency had recently discovered uranium particles enriched up to 84 per cent at a nuclear facility in Iran, only six percentage points away from the weapons-grade threshold.

Although Iran might hit the 90 per cent target for a bomb in “weeks”, according to the ambassador, analysts believe it would still take two to three years to build a nuclear warhead that could be launched against the West.

Hotovely, whose term in London has recently been extended by another year by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, urged Britain and its allies to continue to bring diplomatic and economic pressure on the regime, which is also supplying drones to Russia for its war against Ukraine.

The Home Office and the Foreign Office are split on how to tackle Iran, particularly on Israel’s hope that Britain will proscribe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Home Secretary Suella Braverman is said to be in favour, while the Foreign Office is more cautious and concerned with possible diplomatic repercussions.

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