Many Victims of Hamas Attack Were Left-Leaning Activists Who Supported Palestinians: Report
A number of people who were killed or kidnapped during Saturday’s barbaric Hamas terror attacks in Israel were left-wing activists who tried to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, according to a report.
The New York Times spoke to a number of people on the ground who had friends or family near the Gaza Strip when hordes of militant fighters launched a surprise attack over the weekend.
Rocket barrages started around 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning. What followed was an unprecedented invasion by land, sea and air.
Thousands were killed, wounded or kidnapped.
It remains unclear how many women were raped as Hamas terrorists inside Israel went from house to house killing the unarmed and setting fires.
However, according to the Times, some of the people who would become casualties of what is now a war between Israel and Hamas were sympathetic to their neighbors.
One of them is a 74-year-old woman named Vivian Silver who is believed to have been kidnapped after she tried and failed to hide from the militants in a closet.
According to the report, Silver was a member of a number of political organizations and was “left of center.”
A Canadian by birth, Silver reportedly visited Gaza to show support for the people living there and had referred to Israel as “an apartheid state.”
Yonatan Zeigen, Silver’s son, told an Israeli newspaper he last heard from her about four hours after the attack began and as gunfire was getting closer to her home.
Meanwhile, one of her friends on Facebook commented that she would be as concerned for people in Gaza as she would be for herself.
The Times reported a comment on her page reads, “[Vivian is] probably worried sick about the Palestinian contacts in her phone… She probably thinks of the danger they will now face for being seen as collaborators with the enemy.”
The far-left newspaper referred to other missing or killed left-wing activists near Gaza as “peace-oriented Israelis.”
One woman named Rachel Gur has been searching for missing people in the wake of this weekend’s attacks.
Gur told the Times that many Israelis who live near Gaza share left-wing politics.
“These are kibbutzniks, the people who vote for the left, who support coexistence,” Gur said. “You’re talking about the old time secular leftists, who want peace, who are against annexation.”
Meanwhile, a man the Times described as an Israeli “peace activist,” named Hayim Katsman was confirmed dead after it was presumed he was kidnapped.
More than 900 Israelis had been counted dead as of Tuesday from the surprise terror attacks, The Times of Israel reported.
It has also been reported that Hamas terrorists murdered 40 infants, some of whom were found beheaded.
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