Mom of hostage mistakenly killed by troops preaches unity amid tragedy

Iris Haim, whose son Yotam was killed in December by IDF forces as he attempted to escape captivity in Gaza, underlines what she says is the importance of national unity and mutual responsibility, in explaining her widely publicized comments that she bore no anger toward the soldiers who killed her son.

“Every person who lives in Israel who served in the army or has a child in the army knows that accidental fire harms not only the person who is killed but the person who killed them, and can injure them so badly that they kill themselves, and that’s what I didn’t want,” says Haim at at a conference of the Israel Defense and Security Forum in Ashkelon.

“I am not a guest here,” she says of her life in Israel. “I have responsibility. I’m a homeowner. We all are, and we have responsibility for this place. We are not guests who can come and throw [around] criticism and then leave. We are all responsible for the situation here so that we can continue to live together.

“We are not victims, no one will make victims of us. We have agency over our situation and we will decided how to lift our heads up and think differently.”

Haim also mentions how she spoke with the ultra-Orthodox mother of one of the soldiers killed on October 7 who fought in front of the house from which Yotam was kidnapped.

“It underlined to me how much we are one people with one heart,” she says, recalling that she previously shied away from the ultra-Orthodox. “This drew me very close to a community I never knew.”

She adds that she has refused to wear the dog tags produced to show solidarity with the hostages in Gaza, explaining that she profoundly disagrees with the message inscribed on them: “Our heart is captive in Gaza.”

“My heart is with me. My heart worries for Yotam, for my other children, for my husband, for everyone who is with me. I don’t agree that Hamas can kidnap my heart too,” she says.