From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
Ex-hostages and relatives demand government keep their names and faces out of Oct. 7 memorial
Dozens of former hostages and relatives of hostages and other October 7 victims have penned a letter demanding the government not use their name or likeness or that of their loved ones for a government ceremony being planned to mark one year since the October 7 massacre.
Families of hostages and other victims of October 7 have fumed at the government’s plans for the event, including the decision to charge Transportation Minister Miri Regev with organizing it. Critics say Regev, a Likud apparatchik, will use the ceremony to whitewash the government’s failures surrounding the attack and its continued inability to bring home all those kidnapped nearly 11 months ago.
“We won’t cooperate with the cynical use of the names of the hostages, which the state has abandoned for nearly a year, or the names of relatives murdered in the October 7 massacre,” the approximately 100 signatories say in the missive.
They note that the government has not gained the permission of hostages still in Gaza to use their names or pictures.
“Given the aforementioned, we ask to rethink the establishment of the ceremony and its organization by the government, which is required first and foremost to… bring the hostages home, whether back to their families or to a grave,” the letter reads.
Regev has dismissed the criticism as “noise” and compared plans for a large alternate ceremony to a contentious annual joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial, which is demonized by the Israeli right.
Last week, President Isaac Herzog offered to replace the government’s ceremony with one under his purview at the President’s Residence that would be devoid of politics and include uniting state symbols, but Regev accused him of “picking a side” and insisted that she would be the one to organize the ceremony.
