Father of Oct. 7 victim blames government for her death in ‘religious war’

Eran Littman, whose daughter Oriya was murdered in the Re’im area Nova music festival during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, blames the death of his daughter on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.

“As far as I’m concerned, he, 68 members of Knesset… and his partners are guilty of her murder,” he tells hundreds of anti-government protesters at Habima Square in Tel Aviv.

He says his daughter died in a “religious war,” having been murdered by “radical Islamists,” and goes on to accuse national religious members of the government of seeking to widen that war in Gaza and the West Bank, and ultra-Orthodox members of joining forces with Netanyahu “for budgets and draft evasion.”

The government “isolates Israel and makes it into a leper… and doesn’t bring back the languishing hostages,” he says. “They are agents of chaos, and ignite chaos in the West Bank, banishing people from their homes and causing the desperate to become terrorists, turn into monsters and murder Israelis.”

“The king of darkness, the devil’s right hand, has taken over the State of Israel with the help of his despicable servants, and cast a dark cloud over it,” says Littman, referring to Netanyahu and his coalition partners.

The remains of Oriya Littman Ricardo, 26, were located by her partner, Yair, three days after her murder. Eran Littman thanks Yair: “I owe you.”

Littman says that because he was an anti-Netanyahu protester before the Hamas onslaught, he received messages already on October 7, 2023, accusing and taunting him for his daughter’s death.

We are a divided nation,” he says. “The nation of Israel doesn’t exist any longer, and I don’t want to belong or be associated with these degraded people in any manner.”

“We must go back to being a peace-seeking nation,” he says. “I have a dream that you’ll all wake up from your nightmare and your life will get back on track. And I — I’ll keep dreaming of Oriya.”

After the speeches, the crowd marches on to the anti-government hostage families’ protest in front of the IDF headquarters.