From the Liveblog of
Monday, October 7, 2024
Brother of hostage shot dead by IDF: There is no personal example, no leadership, but we will rebuild
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
One of the final speakers at the Bereaved Families Ceremony was Yonatan Shamriz, the bereaved brother who organized the ceremony. He spoke about his beloved younger brother Alon Shamriz, taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 and accidentally killed by IDF troops on December 15 with Yotam Haim and Samar Tlalka when trying to escape captivity.
Wearing a white t-shirt printed with the name of his devastated kibbutz, Kfar Aza, and a yellow ribbon, Shamriz recalled being in the shelter with his family, holding the door closed against terrorists with a kitchen knife in his hand, receiving updates on his phone about the massacre taking place.
“It was a day without an army, without a state — a day where all we had was ourselves, the citizens. This is what abandonment looks like,” says Shamriz. “Instead of standing here as multitudes of the people of Israel, united, we stand here waiting for the next siren. Instead of a state inquiry commission being established to investigate this colossal failure, we are asking the questions ourselves without getting any answers.”
“There is no personal example, no vision, no leadership, no accountability,” he says, to applause from the audience.
Shamriz tells of his brother, Alon, held for 65 days in Gaza with Haim and Tlalka, navigating for five days in a bombarded neighborhood in Gaza.
They wrote a single word on a white sheet: “Help,” says Shamriz. “But it did not save them.”
He swallows hard, trying to get the words out without crying. The audience applauds him.
Shamriz says he believes a new generation is rising out of the ruins and destruction, a generation that believes in the Israeli spirit, that will rebuild and create a better, more moral country.
“Alon, you hero, thank you for showing us the path. Thank you for setting the standards. We will not desist until we have fixed things. We will not rest until we have rebuilt. We are the generation that will emerge from the ruins, the holocaust, the inferno, and will realize the new Zionist vision. And when that happens, I will know that Alon’s path has become reality. Rise! The people of Israel live,” he says.
