Holocaust survivors deliver protest against Palestinian casualties
Numerous Holocaust survivors marking Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel known as Yom HaShoah, held signs delivering a unique outcry against Palestinian hunger and suffering.
The remembrance day was commemorated in Israel with a series of ceremonies to honour the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis, Middle East Eye reported on April 24th.
Three Holocaust survivors in their 80s at a ceremony in Jerusalem attended by Israeli’s most high-profile politicians including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, clasped signs “If we have lost our compassion for the other, we have lost our humanity,” The Guardian reported on April 25th.
Thousands including descendants of Holocaust survivors lined up in Tel Aviv holding photos of Palestinian children who had died since the Israel-Gaza conflict started.
Many Israelis bordered the roads of the city donned in black carrying empty pots to represent the starvation of those in Gaza. Israel has experienced an increase in demonstrations since the breakdown of the Hamas and Israel ceasefire agreement.
These protests have vehemently called for an end to the fighting in order to rescue the Israeli captives in Gaza, 24 who are understood to be living and the remaining bodies of 35 dead. The devastation caused to the people of Gaza has been evidently excluded from the protests.
There have been more than 51,000 killed in Gaza since the war started on October 8th 2023 after Hamas’ bloody assault on Israel the previous day. Nearly 2,000 Palestinians have died since the war re-started in March.
The trauma experienced by a great deal of Israelis during the 7 October 2023 assault when over 1,200 people were killed by Hamas militants and 251 taken hostage, has caused many to be cold to the suffering of the Palestinians. Mainstream Israeli media has mostly left out narratives showing the destructions caused to civilians in Gaza.
However there small but rising number of people starting to demand the fighting to stop to both rescue the hostages and to end the large-scale devastation in Gaza. There has been an increasing number of letters scripted by army and air force reservists and officers calling on the government to stop the war, in effort to save Israeli lives and innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Holocaust survivor, Veronika Cohen, 80, who was raised in the ghetto in Budapest, said she was protesting outside Yad Vashem on the day of remembrance. She said she did this because: “I don’t think we can remember our suffering without acknowledging the suffering of Gaza, the deaths of tens of thousands of children, the starvation that’s going on this minute, for which we are partially responsible. It occupies the same place in my heart.”
An Israeli mayor told attendees of a Yom HaShoah event that “never again” applies to everyone commemorating the day. Amir Kochavi, mayor of Hod Hasahron cautioned that the devastation of Gaza will not result in Israeli hostages being returned, the Middle East Eye reported on April 24th.
Kochavi said in his speech “Jewish morality” dictates that atrocities like the genocide against Jewish people should be denounced no matter who perpetuates them.
“We must not remain silent in the face of atrocities committed against people of other nationalities in the world, even if they are committed in our name,” he stressed.
He said: “Jewish morality dictates ‘never again’ not only to us, but to all peoples as a moral and ethical imperative of a just and healthy society… 59 brothers and sisters are still held hostage in Gaza, their ‘never again’ still continues.” Approximately half of all Holocaust survivors live in Israel. This being 120,000 survivors of the genocide.
Middle East Eye, The Guardian
