Possible Hungarian victim of Hamas terror attack?
Another Hungarian-Israeli family experienced the consequences of the Hamas terrorist attack on an Israeli kibbutz in early October. According to a relative, a member of this family is believed to be a victim of the attack.
Hungarian-Israelis affected by the Hamas attack
As we reported a few days earlier, it has been confirmed that Hamas has taken Hungarian-Israeli children hostage. The Foreign Ministry acknowledged last week that it was aware of a total of four Hungarian hostages. However, according to recent reports in Hetek, another Hungarian-Israeli teenage girl is also being held hostage by Hamas.
Growing concern
Reports indicated that during the attack, the teenage girl and her mother were forcibly taken to Gaza by Hamas jihadists. Unfortunately, no news has surfaced regarding the father, also a Hungarian-Israeli, who is currently reported as missing.
Hungarian-Israeli victim
Osnat Weiss, a Hungarian-Israeli, chose to share his family’s traumatic experience. He revealed that several family members resided in the Be’eri kibbutz, the very village where terrorists carried out a brutal massacre. Osnat’s brother, Ilan, remains missing since the attack, while his wife (Shiri) and 18-year-old daughter (Noga) were taken hostage by Hamas jihadists in Gaza. The parents’ other two older daughters, however, were rescued safely from the kibbutz and found refuge in another apartment, as reported by atv.hu.
Osnat also disclosed that his other brother, Amir, who also held Hungarian citizenship, tragically lost his life along with his wife during the attack. So according to Hetek, there is a Hungarian victim of the Hamas terror attack. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not yet confirmed the news.
Minister: Government unaware of Hungarian fatalities in Israel
Hungary’s government remains unaware of any Hungarian citizens having died in Israel, and reports of Hungarian fatalities in the Middle Eastern country have proven to be untrue, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday. The government knows of five hostages with Hungarian citizenship in Gaza, having been notified recently of another adult hostage, Szijjártó shared, according to a ministry statement.
He said certain media outlets had blamed the government for having been unaware of the hostages until recently. Szijjártó called for “a minimal degree of fairness”, pointing out that the Hungarian authorities could only be made aware of the hostages if they are notified by the Israeli authorities or relatives.
There had been several cases, he said, of entire families being abducted, with no one left to alert the government, until their more distant relatives realised that they had been taken hostage. “But there are also regrettable cases where the entire family of the individual taken hostage died,” he added.
“So to expect us, in a situation like this, to be aware of someone having been taken hostage before they notify us, is unfair on the part of certain media outlets, to put it mildly,” Szijjártó said.
When lives are in danger, “attempts at such petty political gains, I think, can be considered unworthy, even at this level”, the minister fought back.
The government is in constant contact with the Israeli task force set up to free the hostages, he said, adding that all five Hungarian citizens were included in the list of people the Israeli authorities were trying to free.
Szijjártó said he had consulted last Friday with the foreign minister of a third country acting as a mediator between Israel and Hamas and working to have the hostages freed as soon as possible. “They are also aware of all five Hungarians now,” he added. The minister added his counterpart had promised to pay attention to the Hungarian hostages.
Meanwhile, Szijjártó noted that the government knows of 15 Hungarian citizens stranded in the Gaza Strip who are unable to leave the area for the time being.
The government is in constant contact with them, he said, adding however that this was becoming increasingly difficult because of power and internet connection cut-outs. “We last spoke to all of them yesterday, and they were doing fine. That’s the last update we have on them,” he revealed.
The minister noted that at one point, the Hungarian nationals had managed to pass through two of the three checkpoints towards Egypt, before having to be turned back because of nearby airstrikes.
He also noted that he had spoken with his Egyptian counterpart last week, who had told him that the Hungarians would be allowed to enter the country once the security and legal conditions permitted this.
Radical party: Hungary ‘must stay out of Israeli-Palestinian conflict’
The opposition Mi Hazánk party has called for Hungary to “stay out” of the war between Israel and Hamas, and support the position of the United Nations that urges “an immediate ceasefire and a two-state solution”. In respect of the war in Ukraine, the government proclaimed to be on the side of peace and refused to commit itself either of the warring parties, László Toroczkai, the party’s leader, told a press conference on Tuesday. Yet in the case of the crisis in Israel and Gaza which “threatens the possibility of the outbreak of a third world war”, the government “has abandoned this apparent neutrality” and “has taken the side of bloodshed…”
Mi Hazánk, he said, “most strongly condemns all forms of terrorism”, and that goes for the terrorist acts of Hamas, too. Every state has the right to self-defence, but only in its own territory, he added. Toroczkai said what was taking place in Gaza “can no longer be called self-defence”. “The massacre of 3,000 children cannot in any way be justified as self-defence,” he said, adding that the actions of the Israeli army against Syrian and Lebanese territories risked escalating the conflict.
Source: Hetek