Held in probably the most spectacular of French monument complexes in Paris, Les Invalides, the ceremony to honor the 42 French binational residents killed within the Hamas invasion and bloodbath of October 7 lived as much as its grandiose environment.
Seated underneath giant tents to guard them from the rain had been greater than 1,000 company, together with some 100 members of the victims’ households flown in from Israel. They heard the French Military orchestra and choir, listened to a somber literary-poetic speech by President Emmanuel Macron, and noticed giant images of their family members carried by uniformed French Nationwide Guard by way of the massive courtyard in a posh that dates again to the seventeenth century, all documented by some 170 journalists, in keeping with the President’s workplace, the Elysée Palace.
Within the rain that ultimately stopped, tv, radio and press journalists had little entry to all these company, however luckily the French-Israelis got here to them. And the final opinion of the households was, “Bravo, la France.”
“We wish to thank the French authorities for this ceremony, for placing names on the faces of the victims,” stated Kati Zohar, who misplaced her daughter, Bar, age 23, killed on the Nova pageant, as had been a very good variety of others. She famous that the Israeli authorities had accomplished little to nothing for grieving households, saying, “no person from the federal government has come to see us.”
Not everybody agreed. Residents of Nahariya in northern Israel, Shahaf and Aviv Ben Simon misplaced their child sister Adar, age 20, a commander on the Zikim army base close to Gaza. “Our authorities does assist us,” she stated. “It has acknowledged my sister as a courageous soldier. She and different troopers fought the Hamas terrorists once they arrived. They saved the lives of rookie troopers on the bottom. How do I really feel? I cry daily. However I don’t need all these civilians to die in Gaza. This isn’t revenge by Israelis. They’re casualties in battle. But when we cease the battle now, my sister died for nothing. We would like peace and the tip of Hamas.”
A resident of kibbutz Nir Oz, Sabrina Belhassen Nimtzovitch, stated assembly with President Macron gave her hope to pursue her precedence of bringing dwelling the hostages, three of whom are French binationals. “If establishing a truce will assist convey them dwelling, I’m for it,” she advised “Globes”. “And I feel Sinwar will hearken to officers from Qatar and Egypt greater than to politicians from western international locations, as a result of they’re Muslim Arabs like he’s,” she stated, referring to the Hamas chief within the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar.
On his cellphone, Doron Journo confirmed French journalists pictures of the burnt out ambulance wherein his daughter Karin was killed on the Nova pageant. Hamas terrorists fired an RPG rocket into the ambulance, killing all 14 younger individuals inside, in keeping with Journo. Requested in regards to the Israeli authorities, he responded, “Now isn’t the time and place to speak about political intrigues. However I thank the French for holding this ceremony.”
Not one of the French-Israelis commented on the native political controversy, the presence of the leftist France Unbowed get together, La France Insoumise (LFI), which has not acknowledged Hamas as a terrorist group. Some members of the family and French Jewish group officers had known as on the Elysée to not invite LFI deputies to the ceremony. Nonetheless, doing so would have been a severe breach of parliamentary protocol.
After which French President Emmanuel Macron addressed company. Projected on enormous screens inside and outdoors the Invalides advanced, and likewise at Kikar Hatufim, Hostage Sq., in Tel Aviv, he stated the October 7 assault by Hamas was “the largest antisemitic bloodbath within the twenty first century.”
Virtually each information program right here led with that declaration by the French president. However frankly it does elevate the query, what in regards to the Israeli Bedouin Arabs and the Thai and Philippino staff who had been killed or taken hostage by Hamas on October 7?
The problem was raised by former French prime minister Manuel Valls, a visitor on a chat present within the Paris bureau of i24 Information, which broadcasts out of Jaffa in French, English and Arabic. “I choose to say a hatred of Jews, sure, but additionally a hatred of Israel and of western democracies,” he commented. On the ceremony, he advised journalists, “we should combat towards the specter of radical Islamic terrorism.”
Again to French President Macron. “68 million French persons are in mourning,” he advised company on the ceremony. “The faces of every of the victims are right here, they usually replicate part of ourselves, mirror pictures of who we had been, who we shall be at their age, and who they’ll by no means be…at 6am on October 7, the younger individuals dancing on the Nova pageant didn’t know they had been already caught within the jaws of demise…the sounds of a music pageant had been shattered by the drumbeats of hell….and with its barbarism, Hamas has shaken and crushed the Palestinians of Gaza, and never defended them as it’s claiming.”
The French president appeared solemnly shaken by his personal speech, its literary model virtually unimaginable to translate into English.
But, in keeping with dozens of feedback posted on the France Télévisions web site, not everybody agrees. A number of posts learn: “68 million minus one”, or “what about Palestinian civilian victims of Israeli bombardments?”
And maybe not by chance, there may be discuss right here of the Elysée Palace holding yet one more ceremony, for French residents killed in Gaza. An Elysée Palace spokesperson advised Agence France Presse (AFP) in a dispatch dated February 6, “We owe the identical emotion and dignity to French victims of bombardments in Gaza.” No particulars on a date or kind of ceremony had been talked about.
Unsurprisingly, the thought has drawn reward from the La France Insoumise get together, which acknowledged, “We help honoring Franco-Israeli victims and Franco-Palestinian victims, as a result of each life counts.”
The President of the “7 October 2023 – Damaged Lives” affiliation , Ange Kalderon, commented, “It could be shameful for France, like conceding to the rule of Hamas.”
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on February 8, 2024.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.
