Mother whose son’s body was seized by UNRWA staffer urges UN head to meet in Geneva
‘How can the UN pay this man who dragged my son’s limp body along the ground?’ Ayelet Samerano asks at UN Watch event, showing video of worker’s role in Oct. 7 attack
The mother of Jonathan Samerano, whose body was seized and taken to the Gaza Strip by an UNRWA employee after he was killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7, demanded on Monday to meet with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Geneva.
“Mr. Guterres — look at my eyes and answer me now, where is my son?” Ayelet Samerano said at the International Summit for a Future Beyond UNRWA, a conference in the Swiss city organized by pro-Israel monitoring group UN Watch. “You are next door, you’re here and you have the opportunity to meet me today and tell me what are you going to do and how can you bring me back my son.”
Guterres was in Geneva to attend the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Samerano’s son was killed at the Supernova music festival on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed the border with Israel, murdering some 1,200 people and kidnapping over 250, mostly civilians. Over 360 people were killed at the outdoor rave near Kibbutz Reim.
Crying as she screened surveillance camera footage of two men dragging her son’s body into a white SUV outside Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities hit hardest in the October 7 massacres, she said: “You’re asking me why UNRWA needs to be replaced? An UNRWA worker kidnapped my son!”
The video, which was first published by the Telegram channel “South First Responders” on October 10, just three days after the mass Hamas onslaught, appears to show Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami, a social worker with UNRWA, abducting Samerano’s body with another man.
It was one of the pieces of evidence made public earlier in February when Defense Minister Yoav Gallant revealed the identities of 12 UNRWA staff members who Israel says “actively participated” in the October 7 onslaught, along with at least 30 others who it says assisted, and over 1,500 who are affiliated with the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups.
UNRWA fired all 12 employees once the allegations surfaced, but over a dozen countries led by the US pulled their funding from the the agency as the UN investigates the matter.
“A social worker for a so-called humanitarian organization kidnapped my son. How can someone working for an organization that claims to do good in this world do something so cruel and inhumane?” the grieving mother asked. “How can the UN pay this man who dragged my son’s limp body along the ground and then picked him up as if he was a prize into Gaza. How many more lives have been ruined by this person, hauling my son like he isn’t even a human being into an UNRWA car?”
“Are there any other hostages held by UN employees, even as we are talking right now? Does the UN hold my son? Do you know where he is? Bring him back to me.”
Samerano joined a chorus of Israelis calling for UNRWA to be replaced. Protesters have rallied outside UNRWA offices in Jerusalem, calling for the removal of the UN refugee agency for Palestinians from the capital.
The UN has announced the creation of an independent panel to assess the agency following the claims, though Israel argues its mandate is too vague and will not prevent terrorists from taking advantage of the organization in the future.
“My young son’s generation doesn’t care about religion. They don’t care about sexual orientation. They don’t care about race. They just want to live a peaceful and happy life,” Samerano said.
“My son was not armed. He was not in a war situation. His only weapons were his smile… happiness and charm. Jonathan was full of life. Always smiling. Always joking. He did everything with joy.”
Samerano is one of 130 hostages believed to remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a week-long truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 11 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military. The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 31 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza. One more person is listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
Hamas is also holding the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
