'Stop blaming us,' October 7 survivor tells UN

 

A demonstrator lights a pink flare as others deploy a banner and raise pictures of hostages during an anti-government protest calling for action to secure the release of Israeli hostages held captive since the October 7 attacks by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv on September 4, 2024. [AFP]

October 7 survivor Sabine Taasa, who lost her husband and 17-year-old son during the Hamas attack, urged UN experts to stop blaming Israel for the war and focus on the trauma inflicted on Israeli children.

"I need you to stop blaming us," said Taasa, 48, whose son's murder was filmed by his killers.

Before Hamas militants burst into Taasa's home in the village of Netiv Haasara in southern Israel, her eldest son Or -- who was on his way to the beach -- called her.

The mother-of-four said he sounded terrified but urged her not to worry, and said, "Mom, I promise everything will be ok."

He was killed just seconds later. And she would later see the video filmed by the militants who shot him.

"Is that normal? Shooting a child of 17 six times in the head?" Taasa asked the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva as she described the horrors of October 7.

Deeply traumatised

Around the same time, militants entered Taasa's home.

Her husband Gil, 46, a firefighter, grabbed his handgun to fight back. The militants lobbed a grenade at him and he threw himself on top of it to protect his children.

Two of their sons were injured. The youngest, Shay, now nine, had an eye blown out of its socket, permanently blinding that eye.

Taasa's three surviving sons are deeply traumatised, she told AFP after the hearing, describing how Shay "cannot sleep without me. He needs me 24/7."

Just then her phone rang. She said her son calls her "every minute", and if an hour goes by without them speaking he tells her: "Mama, I was pretty sure that something bad happened to you. I don't want you to die."

Before her testimony, the child rights committee had insisted that Israel ensure children's rights are respected not only there but also in Palestinian territories under its effective control.

Several of the committee's 18 independent experts voiced deep concern about the situation of children living in Gaza, where Israel's campaign against Hamas since October 7 has killed at least 40,861 people, according to the territory's health ministry.

Most of the dead are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.

The Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians and including hostages killed in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Marked for life

Taasa urged the committee to reflect on what it means to be "not just a child in Gaza, but also a child in Israel living with trauma marking them for life".

"These children are the future of Israel, of the world. If we don't help them now and cure them, we will not have a future."

"We are not criminals," she said the French Israeli, insisting it was Hamas "who are the terrorists, the devils who kill children, women, men, the elderly."

Taasa, who supports Israel government's stated aim to "destroy Hamas", told AFP she hoped her evidence would help garner "a bit of understanding" from the committee, insisting "we didn't ask for this war".

Her testimony came after Israel's military announced Tuesday that it had killed eight Hamas fighters from the Daraj Tuffah Battalion, including Ahmed Fozi Nazer Muhammad Wadia, the commander who led the invasion of Netiv Haasara and who was photographed inside Taasa's home.

"I remember him. He was very ugly," Taasa told AFP, adding that she felt "very satisfied" after hearing he had been killed.

"But not happy," she said, adding that she would not feel happy until "we get (Hamas chief Yahya) Sinwar and kill him."