TEL AVIV: The families of Israeli children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza pleaded Monday for international voices to demand their release at a protest outside the UN children’s fund in Tel Aviv.
Several hundred demonstrators joined the protest on World Children’s Day, more than six weeks after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 others hostage.
At least 35 of the hostages are children, with 18 of them aged 10 and under, according to an AFP count. That figure includes a baby which the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was born in captivity.
Demonstrators held Israeli flags, portraits of the children and stuffed toys, with a projector casting enormous pictures of their names, faces and ages onto the side of the building housing the offices of UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, as participants chanted: “UN do your job!“
“How can it be that in the face of this horror, my 12-year-old boy Erez and Sa’ar, 16, and many other children are hostages — brutally taken hostage — and the world is silent?” said Hadas Kalderon whose two children have been held in Gaza by Palestinian militants since October 7.
“Large institutions like UNICEF are silent. Have you forgotten your role?” she said.
“Where are the rights of my children?“
The rally took place shortly before the families were to meet with Israel’s war cabinet as rumors circulated that a possible hostage deal was in the offing.
Across Tel Aviv, like in many cities in Israel, the streets are plastered with banners, posters and stickers calling for the hostages’ safe return.
Air raid sirens warning of incoming Hamas rockets suddenly interrupted the demonstration, with some people running for shelter as others flung themselves onto the ground.
Yoni Asher, whose two daughters, four-year-old Raz and Aviv, 2, are among the hostages, called on UNICEF to make a public stand about Israeli children “like you refer specifically to babies on the other side.”
“We are all hurt for each and every baby, for each and every child. We don’t want any children to get harmed. If we can say it, can’t you?,” he said.
Since October 7, Israel has pounded Gaza relentlessly from the air, land and sea with officials in the Hamas-run territory saying at least 13,300 people have been killed, among them more than 5,600 children.
Families of Israeli child hostages make plea on World Children’s Day
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Families of Israeli child hostages make plea on World Children’s Day
- Several hundred demonstrators joined the protest on World Children’s Day
CNN producer Ibrahim Dahman loses nine relatives in Israeli strike on Gaza
- Israel resumed combat operations after a seven-day temporary truce with Hamas
- Dahman’s childhood home in Gaza City has been destroyed in the Israeli offensive
DUBAI: CNN producer Ibrahim Dahman lost nine relatives in an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza, CNN reported.
Dahman had escaped to Egypt with his family, but on Sunday heard news that at least nine family members were killed when the building they were living in Beit Lahia took a direct hit by an Israeli strike.
His uncle, and the uncle’s wife, daughter and two grandchildren, as well as his aunt, her husband and two children perished, while at least two other relatives are in critical condition and others are still buried under the rubble.
Dahman’s childhood home in Gaza City was also destroyed in a separate strike on an adjacent building the same day, CNN reported.
“I will never be able to forget every stone and corner of the house in which I was born and raised and in which my children were born,” Dahman said in the CNN report.
“They were extremely peaceful and simple people, and their entire lives were devoted solely to work and raising their sons and daughters. They have no affiliation with any organization or group… Pray to God to have mercy on them all.”
Dahman’s brother had earlier called to tell him that his home in Gaza City, where he was born and grew up, has been reduced to ruins by the Israeli bombardment.
He had just finished renovating the apartment months before the Hamas attack, and told CNN he had fond memories living there, including celebrating his sons’ birthdays with cake and candles surrounded by family.
“Unfortunately, I left all my memories, my belongings, and the gifts that my bosses sent me at work in this house, all of which were lost under the rubble now.”
Israel’s military resumed combat operations against Hamas in Gaza last week after accusing Hamas of violating a seven-day temporary truce by firing toward Israeli territory.
The seven-day pause, which began on Nov. 24 and was extended twice, had allowed for the exchange of dozens of hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and facilitated the entry of humanitarian aid into the shattered coastal strip.
Israel has sworn to annihilate the Palestinian militant group, which rules Gaza, in response to the Oct. 7 rampage when Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.
Putin lands in Abu Dhabi on Middle East visit: Russian state media
ABU DHABI: President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday landed in the United Arab Emirates for a rare visit outside the former Soviet Union, Russian state media reported, as Moscow seeks to reassert itself on the global stage.
“Putin’s plane has landed in Abu Dhabi,” the state-run RIA Novosti reported on social media, while Russian state television showed Putin being greeted by officials on the runway.
Iran says it sent a capsule with animals into orbit as it prepares for human missions
A report by the official IRNA news agency quoted Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour as saying the capsule was launched 130 kilometers (80 miles) into orbit.
Zarepour said the launch of the 500-kilogram (1,000-pound) capsule is aimed at sending Iranian astronauts to space in coming years. He did not say what kind of animals were in the capsule.
State TV showed footage of a rocket named Salman carrying the capsule into space.
Iran occasionally announces successful launches of satellites and other space crafts. In September, Iran said it sent a data-collecting satellite into space. In 2013, Iran said it sent a monkey into space and returned it successfully.
It says its satellite program is for scientific research and other civilian applications. The US and other Western countries have long been suspicious of the program because the same technology can be used to develop long-range missiles.
Iran Revolutionary Guards seize two vessels smuggling 4.5 million liters of fuel — Tasnim
DUBAI: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Navy have seized two vessels smuggling 4.5 million liters of fuel, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday.
Tasnim said 34 foreign crew have been detained by the Guards in the operation.
Iran, which has some of the world’s cheapest fuel prices due to heavy subsidies and the plunge in the value of its national currency, has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling by land to neighboring countries and by sea to Gulf Arab states.
Israel reviewing strike that harmed Lebanese troops, army says
- Lebanese army say the soldier, a sergeant, was killed when an army position was shelled by Israel on Tuesday
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Wednesday it was reviewing a strike that harmed Lebanese troops in south Lebanon, an apparent reference to Israeli shelling that killed a Lebanese soldier and wounded three others the previous day.
“The Lebanese Armed Forces were not the target of the strike. The IDF expresses regret over the incident. The incident is under review,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Israel and the heavily armed Lebanese group Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border since the start of the war between the Palestinian group Hamas and Israel on Oct. 7.
The Lebanese army said the soldier, a sergeant, was killed when an army position was shelled by Israel on Tuesday.
The Israeli army said its soldiers had acted in “self defense to eliminate an imminent threat that had been identified from Lebanon” from a “known launch area and observation point” used by Hezbollah.
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon UNIFIL noted in a statement on Tuesday it was the first Lebanese army soldier killed during the hostilities, and that the Lebanese army had not engaged in conflict with Israel.
