They exchanged text messages and emojis. Brief status updates with words of encouragement. A picture of the beloved family dog “Tutsi.”
Until no more messages came.
And then, Cindy Flash, an American, and her Israeli husband Igal vanished into the violence, presumed kidnapped by Hamas.
Four days after Hamas attacked Israel, more than 100 Israelis and potentially dozens of foreign nationals are thought to be held captive in the Gaza Strip. At least 14 U.S. citizens have been killed and an unknown number are still unaccounted for.
Flash, 67, originally from St. Paul, Minnesota, is one of them. She lives in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz in southern Israel near Gaza, where some of the most harrowing and grisly stories have been emerging during the last few days.
“They are breaking down the safe room door,” Flash said in one of her final messages to her daughter Keren, 34. “We need someone to come by the house right now.” She had been communicating with her parents from a few houses away.
Keren described her mother, who worked as an administrator in a local college, as someone who had the “sweetest biggest heart,” who everyone knew and loved, and who had spent a lifetime advocating for the rights of Palestinians, including those who live in Gaza where she may now be held.
I really don’t understand why people decided to live in these kibbutz right next to the Gaza border and never realize that this might happen.
It’s like sitting right on the very edge of the shoulder of a very busy highway. Eventually you will be hit by a fast moving car.
It’s disputed territory with the potential of becoming a war zone at any moment and people decided to buy expensive real estate and build beautiful homes next to impoverished people that have nothing.
And we should be surprised that this happened?
What the Palestinians did was terrible … but we should all be reading the headlines with a lot of history and context. None of it is justified by any side … but at the same time, none of it is a surprise.
wow. this is the best comment I have seen on it. I feel sorta similar. Whats been done is just monsterous but man the situation is so ridiculous and I wish the US and the rest of the world had done many different things post ww2.
WWII will continue to shape the history of the world for generations to come.
Did you see what happened? I mean all the killing of civilians, just targeting women, elderly and children on purpose? And you are not surprised in any way that humans can do that?
Ignoring the aspect that you might think that one of the best army in the world guards the border, do you expect human being to do such atrocities, especially if you are a person advocating for their rights?
It really does seem like an inevitable outcome of the status quo. I think it’s silly to pretend otherwise.
Hamas isn’t Palestine. They don’t represent the Palestinian people. It’s not because Hamas took her that she was betrayed by Palestinians.
Hamas was elected in 2006. The destruction of Israel was clear on its agenda. They are representing people of Gaza.
I voted for a way different party in 2006 than I do now. Opinions change.
Hamas isn’t in any way working for Palestinian rights. Hamas is not a synonym for Palestinian.
From a psychological point of view it is said that those with an inferiority complex will hate their helpers more than their oppressors due to the incongruity in their respective status. With the oppressors firmly entrenched in an unassailable position, the helpers instead become vulnerable targets of convenience. Similar to how abused victims go to create other victims instead of fighting against their abusers. Which is why it is said that the correct method of helping victims of abuse is to have them help themselves in order to restore their sense of self-worth. To help a victim of abuse is often thankless, risky and painful, with only a sense of self-satisfaction often being the sole reward in case of a successful intervention. This case was not a successful intervention.
If this were true, then there would have been no point in supporting emancipation or civil rights as a white person. No point supporting women’s suffrage, even though that was passed democratically with the help of voting men. LGBTQ people do not hate allies, they hate people who actively oppose their right to exist.
I think this pop psychoanalysis doesn’t apply to questions of social justice. What Palestinians need is not just “a sense of self worth”, as if this is just a question of having the right attitude. They need rights.
I was under the impression that the border was extremely well guarded and secure. At least at some point it must have been. It seems like the government recently moved troops to the west bank in order to protect settlers instead. https://lemmy.world/post/6616736
Settlers in illegal settlements on land seized from occupied People.
This is another one if those examples where helping bad people only gets you fucked over. They have no loyalty.
Helping “bad people”? There’s nothing inherently more bad about Palestinians than any other nationality.
The people she was supporting kidnapped her so… They weren’t exactly fighting for the good guys.
