British daughter of hostage calls for corridors in and out of Gaza
The British daughter of a hostage captured by Hamas on 7 October has called on Rishi Sunak to “make good” on his promise to do everything possible to secure the release of her 83-year-old father – including a ceasefire, “if that helps”.
Sharone Lifschitz, 52 and from London, told i she is “petrified” at what might happen to her father, Oded, as he is held in Gaza, where more than 10,500 people have died under Israel’s bombs in just over a month, according to its Hamas-run health ministry.
Ms Lifschitz, an artist who lives in London with her British-born husband and son, had both her parents taken hostage by Hamas after the militant group stormed different kibbutz communities in southern Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 hostage.
While her father remains in captivity, her 85-year-old mother, Yocheved Lifshitz, was one of just four people who have been freed by Hamas since they were abducted.
Ms Lifschitz said while “it’s not possible to make peace” with a “vicious” force like Hamas, which controls Gaza, negotiations should be strengthened to secure the hostages’ release.
She claimed the UK Prime Minister has a “duty towards me” after she said he vowed to do everything he could to help bring her parents back during a private meeting held before her mother was freed on 24 October alongside Nurit Cooper, 79.
Pointing to how more than a month has gone by and her family still has had no update on the condition of her father, who suffered a gunshot wound to his hand during Hamas’s attack, the senior lecturer said: “My father is still there, it’s 32 days and I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.”
Ms Lifschitz called for the UK and Israel’s allies to push for the “immediate release” of the hostages trapped in Gaza through negotiations.
The senior lecturer at the University of East London also called on the Prime Minister to support the opening of humanitarian corridors to allow for Palestinian civilians to leave the besieged enclave and for Israeli representatives to go into Gaza to check the condition of those abducted.
Ms Lifschitz described a feeling of “ambiguous loss” as she doesn’t know whether her father is still alive.
“When we get them back we can really start mourning the dead,” she said about those who are already known to have died at the hands of Hamas, proscribed as a terrorist group by the UK.
Israel on Sunday rejected growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza saying there would be no such suspension “without the return of the hostages”.
But Ms Lifschitz said her family was “horrified” and “very anxious” about the current “bloodshed” being seen in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people who are in desperate need of food, water, fuel and medical supplies as they’re under siege by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
She said Israel’s current course of action in the strip could put her father – who with her mother “fought all their lives for a shared future between Israelis and Palestinians” – and other hostages at further risk.
“I worry tremendously about Israel pressing ahead and just going for a fight in which some hostages will be killed in order to save others.”
Israel has a “moral responsibility” for the release of hostages, she said, “and if ceasefire helps in that, then that’s what it should do.”
Ms Lifschitz stressed the importance of drawing a distinction between Hamas and Palestinians as she said: “The people of Palestine deserve a lot better than that [the Gaza siege],” adding, “Bringing back the hostages is the best way for this onslaught to finish.”
‘I wanted to see with my own eyes’
Ms Lifschitz, who had travelled to Israel to support her family during the ordeal, said that the day before returning to the UK last week she decided to go back to her family’s kibbutz in Nir Oz, the scene of what she called “unimaginable crimes” at the hands of Hamas.
“Everything is burnt,” she said. “There is nothing left of my parents’ life.”
She said she saw the five gunshots on the door of the secure room – one of which was responsible for her father being wounded – and “all the signs of the struggle and the killing” in the village.
“I wanted to see with my own eyes.
“The birds were still singing and the peacocks walked around and the trees were green… and in between that you walk from house to house of people you’ve known all your life and it’s like a massive crime scene with nothing blocking you from going in.
“We have lost so much. We are devastated, this place was one built with blood, sweat and tears for all their lives for 65 years.”
i has approached Downing Street for comment.
