#Bilal al-Ziadna | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

matan4il · 11 months ago

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Update post:

First, on a personal note, I started my day by calling my family that lives outside of Jerusalem to tell them I'm alive. Two terrorists, residents of an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem (i.e, not Palestinians, who would have to go through a checkpoint, giving soldiers the opportunity to stop them), started shooting people standing at the bus station at the entrance to the city, using a gun and an assault rifle. Three people were killed, one of them a young woman, 24 years old, one is a 73 years old rabbi, and the last is a 67 years old woman. At least 9 more people were injured, 3 of them are still in serious condition. The two terrorists were neutralized at the scene thanks to three people who fired back, one of them was a soldier who was on a 12 hour leave from Gaza, he was at the bus station on his way back to his unit. The terrorists were brothers, affiliated with Hamas, and both had been jailed for terrorist activity in the past. Some of the convicted terrorists who had been released in the past few days, to free innocent Israeli civilians, are residents of the same Jerusalem neighborhood.

Then there was a second terrorist attack today in the Jordan Valley, in this case the terrorist tried driving his vehicle into a crowd, he was neutralized, a few people are injured lightly.

This is Kfir Bibas.

He's the baby who was 9 months old when he was kidnapped together with his 4 years old brother Ariel, his mom Shiri and his dad Yarden. Hamas first said that the Bibas family was handed over by them to another terrorist organization to hold them. Yesterday, Hamas said the Bibas family had been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza. Hamas had previously said that 19 years old Noa Marziano was killed by Israeli fire, it later turned out that she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist in the basement of the Shifa hospital in Gaza. Hamas also said Chana Katzir was killed by Israeli fire. She was released alive. We're all hoping that Hamas is lying about the Bibas family, and that we will see little Kfir and Ariel again, that this is just another part of Hamas' psychological warfare (i.e, psychological torture).

This is 17 years old Aisha al-Ziadna.

You can tell from her hijab, that there is no way Hamas didn't know they were kidnapping a Muslim teenager when they took her, her dad, and her two brothers captive. We know that on the list of hostages to be released today, there are 2 kids. It was just confirmed that it's Aisha and her 18 years old brother Bilal. I'm so glad for Aisha and her family! I'll also admit that as a woman, I've been more worried this whole time for all the girls and women held captive by rapists. I've heard an Israeli Bedouin saying he believed Hamas was keeping her to be released among the last of the hostage kids, to drive a greater wedge between Israel and its Bedouin population. If Aisha and Bilal will finally be freed today, that would mean 38 of the 40 kidnapped kids and teenagers have been released, and the only two remaining in Gaza are Kfir and Ariel Bibas.

We've been hearing more and more about the conditions of captivity the hostages were held under. I'll emphasize that they were kept separately, so what's true for one, is not necesarily true for all, but the overall picture is grim.

Most hostages were kept underground, without fresh air and sunlight. They slept on benches or on plastic chairs. They were not given the medications they need, or they were given unsufficient doses of them. At least one hostage was released in critical state because of this, 84 years old Elma Avraham. One of the doctors fighting to save her life said that had she been released even just one day later, it would have been impossible to save her. She could have been released on the first day of the deal. She was released on the third. For the most part, hostages were not allowed to shower, they were only given new clothes once, on the day of release, and they had no privacy when using the toilettes (again, think about what this meant for girls and women), when asking to use the toilettes, they were sometimes forced to wait for hours for that. At least one kid (12 years old Eitan Yahalomi) told his family he was forced to watch the horror movies Hamas filmed on Oct 7 under gun threat. I'm terrified for what this must have done to him psychologically. All of the kids are having trouble speaking normally, they were threatened with violence if they do anything more than whisper. The Thai captives who were released said they were abused as well, but that the Jewish hostages they were held with, were treated worse (one Thai man mentioned Hamas beat the Jewish captives with electric cables). All of the hostages were malnourished, some of the adult hostages lost up to 15 kilograms (roughly 33 pounds) over 7 weeks, which doctors said amounts to being starved.

(this is Elma Avraham when checked by the Red Cross during her release. I can't not mention that the Red Cross was supposed to give Israel a heads up if any hostage was in a life threatening condition, which Elma was, but the Red Cross didn't say anything, so it was only after a second check by Israel that Elma's critical condition was diagnosed, and she was rushed to the hospital by helicopter)

(speaking of the Thai nationals who were released by Hamas, they were also taken to an Israeli hospital to be treated there until they can go home. Something that really moved me is that the hospital bought a Buddha statue so that these people could pray, even before they're well enough to be discharged)

One Israeli hostage, Roni Crivoi, managed to take advantage of Israeli fire in Gaza, escape his Hamas captors, and he tried to make his way back. Unfortunately for him, he was captured by Gazan civilians, and handed over back to Hamas. Gazan civilians are also some of the people holding Israeli hostages. One kid hostage recounted that he was locked in the attic of an UNRWA teacher (just a reminder, this is a UN employee), who barely give him food, and didn't provide him with his medication. Another was held captive by a Gazan doctor, a man who provided medical care for Palestinian kids, but betrayed his hypocratic oath when it came to an Israeli kid. And it's been Gaza civilians showing up every night, screaming, banging on the jeeps in which the Israeli hostages were being driven to their release, or even throwing rocks at those vehicles. In fact, as hostages were not told they were being freed, many of them said the violence of the crowds made them think they were being taken to be lynched.

Hamas has been violating the hostage deal repeatedly. There's the rockets fired into Israel 15 minutes after the fighting was supposed to stop, there's the promised Red Cross visits to the hostages not freed, which have not yet happened, there's the separation of kids from their mothers (such as Hilla Rotem... Hamas claimed they couldn't release her mother with Hilla, because they didn't know where the mom is. Hilla indicated this was a lie, as she was held together with her mom up until a day before her release. Or another example is Maya Regev, who was freed without er brother Itay, even though he was 18 years old and they were supposed to be released together), there's the Hamas terrorists who fired and threw explosives at IDF soldiers while the fighting is supposed to be on break (starting on day 5 of the deal, we're now on day 7), there was an attempt to offer kidnapped bodies (Israel was able to confirm that three hostages, were actually killed on Oct 7, and Hamas is holding their bodies captive) instead of living people to be released today (which Hamas tried to claim they had to do since they had no more women and kids to release today... when Israel insisted that wasn't true, and if Hamas doesn't rectify the list, the fighting will resume this morning at 7, suddenly Hamas was able to add 3 more women to the list of released hostages for today)...

On a personal note, one of my two kidnapped colleagues was released yesterday, Liat Atzili, and she's been reunited with her kids, but her husband is still in captivity. We've heard through the released hostages that my other colleague is still alive. That's a bit of a relief, since we didn't even know if there was hope for that, given the fact that he had undergone a surgery not that long ago, and is till need of medical care. This is Liat:

This was a perfect reaction to an American projecting American social concepts onto Israel, where the whole history of the conflict is completely different:

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"Israelis get to be white"

Just a reminder that while Jews come in a variety of skin colors, as the above vid nicely points out, no Jew is a part of the social construct of "being white."

This is Liora Argamani, a Chinese woman, who fell in love with and married an Israeli man. Together they had one daughter, Noa. She was kidnapped to Gaza. Liora is dying from cancer. This is the message that she wanted to share:

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(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

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n0thingiscool · 10 months ago

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And then there's the Bedouin People no one's covering in the IDF/Hamas News

"Wahid al-Huzail is exhausted. For the past two months, the 51-year-old has been leading the Negev Bedouin Casualty Forum, a newly-formed NGO that was set up to support the families of Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel who were killed, wounded, or kidnapped during the Hamas-led October 7 assault. For all the extensive coverage in Israeli and international media on the plight of the hostages in Gaza and the communities most affected by the massacres, these victims have largely been forgotten. Seventeen Bedouin citizens from the Naqab (Negev) desert were killed that day, both as a result of rockets fired from Gaza and after being shot by militants who breached the fence that encages the Strip. A further six Bedouins were kidnapped and taken to Gaza; two of them were released as part of a hostage-prisoner exchange during last week’s temporary ceasefire, while the other four remain captives. “Do you understand that nobody is considering us?” al-Huzail asked, with desperation in his voice." "The youngest Bedouin victim, 5-year-old Yazan Abu Jama’a, was killed when a rocket fired from Gaza exploded close to his home in the village of Arara al-Naqab during the first hours of the war. Another victim, 50-year-old Abd al-Rahman Nasasra, was shot dead while trying to rescue people from the Nova music festival that was attacked by Hamas gunmen. Construction worker Amer Odeh Abu Sabila, a 25-year-old father of two, was also shot while trying to save a Jewish family near the Sderot police station. The list goes on and on. Then there are the abductees. Four of them were from the same family: Yousef al-Ziadna (53) and his three children, Hamza (22), Bilal (18), and Aisha (17), were all kidnapped while working at a barn on Kibbutz Holit (Aisha and Bilal have since been released). The other two Bedouin hostages are 53-year-old Farhan al-Qadi, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Magen where he works as a guard at the packing house; and 22-year-old Samer al-Talalqa, who worked at Kibbutz Nir Am."

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