ILGA World has suspended an Israeli advocacy group after it withdrew its bid to host its conference in Tel Aviv.

The Aguda, the Association for LGBTQ+ Equality in Israel, had bid to host the 2026/2027 ILGA World Conference. The ILGA World board of directors was to have voted on the proposal at the 2024 ILGA World Conference 2024 that will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, from Nov. 11-15.

ILGA World on Tuesday announced “the bid to host our next World Conference in Tel Aviv will not go forward, and will not be put to a vote at the upcoming World Conference.” The announcement notes the ILGA World Board “held an emergency meeting and unanimously decided to remove the bid from the Aguda from consideration, and it has also decided to suspend the organization from our membership.”

The announcement further says the Aguda’s bid “was found in violation of ILGA World’s aims and objectives set out in our constitution (3.1 and 3.2.)”

“The ILGA World board is also reviewing the Aguda’s compliance with our constitution and has decided to suspend the organization from our membership to allow for that to happen,” said ILGA World in its announcement.

The decision to suspend the Aguda comes against the backdrop of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas militants last Oct. 7 killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival, when they launched a surprise attack against southern Israel. The Israeli government says the militants also kidnapped more than 200 people.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 41,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7.

A case that South Africa filed with the International Court of Justice in the Hague late last year accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The International Criminal Court, which is also in the Hague, in May announced it plans to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh. 

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the five men have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel. (A suspected Israeli airstrike on July 31 killed Haniyah while he was in the Iranian capital of Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration. Israeli soldiers on Oct. 16 killed Sinwar in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that borders Egypt.)

“We know that seeing the Tel Aviv bid taken into consideration caused anger and harm to our communities,” said ILGA World in its statement. “Our apology goes to our members, to our host organizations, and our global communities — and especially to those in South Africa, who will soon host the global movement for our upcoming World Conference.”

“We recognize the historical experience with apartheid and colonialism in South Africa: Even the possibility of voting on such a bid in their home country would have been at odds with the unequivocal solidarity for the Palestinian people,” it adds.

ILGA World also said it supports calls for “stronger governance practices in vetting the proposals we receive.”

“We heard our communities, and we must do better in the future: A situation like this must not repeat,” it said.

The Aguda in a statement said it is “deeply disappointment that ILGA has chosen to boycott those who work for LGBTQ+ rights and strive towards a more just society.”

“For 50 years, the Aguda, the Association for LGBTQ+ Equality in Israel, has worked to support the LGBTQ+ community and uphold human rights for all, including supporting LGBTQ+ individuals in the Arab community, and Palestinian asylum seekers persecuted for their sexual and gender identities,” reads the statement. “The Israeli LGBTQ+ identity embraces both service and contribution to the state as citizens, while continuing to fight for the values of democracy and human rights in the society in which we live.”

The Aguda added Israel’s LGBTQ community “should not bear responsibility for government policy, and we expect the international community to support liberal voices rather than boycott them.”

“We are proud to be LGBTQ+ and Israeli, and we will continue to fight for a more equal and safer society,” said the Aguda.

ILGA World Executive Director Julia Ehrt on Wednesday told the Washington Blade in an emailed statement the organization “has communicated in writing with the Aguda.”

“So far, we have not heard from them other than on social media, but of course they have a right to defend their membership status according to our governance procedures,” said Ehrt.

Groups ‘complicit in Israeli apartheid or genocide should be expelled’

Charbel Maydaa, the founder and general director of MOSAIC, a Lebanon-based advocacy group that works throughout the Middle East and North Africa, is also the co-chair of ILGA Asia. He is among the activists who welcomed ILGA World’s decision to withdraw the Aguda’s bid.

A thread in response to a post on Maydaa’s LinkedIn page notes ILGA World in 1987 expelled the Gay Association of South Africa after it “refused to condemn apartheid” in the country “or to get involved in political struggles.”

“GASA’s stance led to its dissolution, and the formation of new and more progressive LGBT rights groups in South Africa,” said Gabriel Hoosain Khan, a London-based activist. “Organizations that are complicit in Israeli apartheid or genocide should be expelled.”

The International Planned Parenthood Federation also welcomed ILGA World’s decision. A Wider Bridge, a group that “advocates for justice, counters LGBTQphobia, and fights antisemitism, and other forms of hatred,” described it as “outrageous and unacceptable.”

ILGA (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) supposedly stands for respect for human rights, equality and freedom regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics,” said A Wider Bridge in a statement. “But by singling out Israel and Israeli LGBTQ people for opprobrium, ILGA violates its fundamental principles.”

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The 2022 ILGA World Conference took place in Long Beach, Calif.

“I am appalled and disgusted that ILGA World would ostracize and expel the leading organization in Israel that fights for the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people there,” said California Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, who is the former executive director of Equality California, a statewide LGBTQ rights group, on X. “This is appalling and blatant anti-Semitism and an abandonment of LGBTQ+ Israelis.”

Shame on @ILGAWORLD. As the former leader of @eqca, CA’s LGBTQ civil rights org, I am appalled and disgusted that @ilgaworld would ostracize and expel the leading org in #Israel that fights for the civil rights of LGBTQ+ ppl there. This is appalling and blatant antisemitism and… https://t.co/6zrU1WQQ7J

— Rick Chavez Zbur (@RickChavezZbur) October 30, 2024

Ehrt in her statement to the Blade acknowledged criticisms over ILGA World’s decision. She also dismissed suggestions that anti-Semitism prompted it.

“ILGA World has a long and proven record of fighting for equality for all,” said Ehrt. “We have repeatedly called for peace in the region, and continue to work every day to counter racism, xenophobia, islamophobia, and anti-Semitism — alongside LGBTI-phobia. Our daily work speaks much louder than the baseless accusations we are receiving.” 

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Israel from Oct. 4-14.

JERUSALEM — LGBTQ Israelis and the groups that advocate for their rights continue to struggle with the aftermath of Oct. 7.

Hadas Kerem Bloemendal is the chair of Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, a group that organizes the city’s annual Pride parade. The therapist and former Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer who is raising twins with her wife spoke with the Washington Blade on Oct. 8 at Jerusalem Open House’s offices that are located near the city’s Zion Square.

Bloemendal said she and her colleagues in the days after Oct. 7 realized a lot of LGBTQ Israelis would not ask for help “from regular hotlines because they are afraid that the people that will answer will not be gay-friendly enough or will not understand the complexity of what they are going through.”

She told the Blade a closeted man in a message he posted to an online bulletin board said he is “really afraid because his boyfriend was kidnapped, and he can’t tell anyone because he’s gay and he’s not out, and if anyone would find out, what would they do to him.” 

The man’s boyfriend is one of 251 people who Hamas militants kidnapped on Oct. 7. It remains unclear whether all of the 101 hostages who remain in the Gaza Strip are still alive.

“You can’t imagine such a thing,” said Bloemendal.

A group of gay-friendly therapists after Oct. 7 volunteered to hold virtual sessions for Jerusalem Open House. The group also created a Google spreadsheet to streamline referrals.

Bloemendal said Jerusalem Open House received more than 80 calls in the two weeks after Oct. 7.

The Jewish Federations of North America gave Jerusalem Open House funding to continue the program. Jerusalem Open House subsequently created a network of LGBTQ-friendly therapists and social workers throughout Israel who work with the transgender community, Orthodox men and women, Arab Israelis, and other groups.

“People who lost family members, people who are evacuated from their homes are getting therapy through the project,” said Bloemendal.

She added Jerusalem Open House also works with IDF reservists, “people who were hurt during this war,” and “people who were already in a very fragile state before the war started.”

“When you are a fragile population, war only makes it worse,” said Bloemendal.

Yam Bahar is a spokesperson for Pride House of Be’er Sheva in Be’er Sheva, which is southern Israel’s largest city. The freelance photographer and editor who also manages a local bar spoke with the Blade on Oct. 9.

A Bedouin man three days earlier killed an Israel Border Police officer and injured 10 others when he attacked Be’er Sheva’s main bus station. It is less than a mile from Pride House of Be’er Sheva.

Pride House of Be’er Sheva, like Jerusalem Open House, offered psychological support to the local community after Oct. 7. Pride House of Be’er Sheva also started a “hamal” or “war room” in Hebrew that coordinated donations of food and children’s toys to displaced families.

“It was important for the community here to do this,” Bahar told the Blade.

Pride House of Be’er Sheva also distributes food on holidays.

“We’re trying to make this a place that can address real problems of people who are here,” said Bahar.

The Aguda, the Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel, after Oct. 7 worked with other advocacy groups to host displaced people. The Aguda also made care packages for IDF soldiers, and offered mental health services.

“We did our best,” Aguda CEO Yael Sinai Biblash told the Blade on Oct. 8. “LGBTQ people in Israel are vulnerable, and once we’re at war they are more vulnerable.”

“They need more help,” she added.

Hamas militants on Oct. 8, 2023, killed IDF Maj. Sagi Golan in Be’eri, a kibbutz that is near the Israel-Gaza border. His fiancé, Omer Ohana, with the support of the Aguda and other advocacy groups, successfully lobbied Israeli lawmakers to amend the country’s Bereaved Families Law to recognize LGBTQ widows and widowers of fallen servicemembers.

Biblash is among the hundreds of people who attended Golan’s memorial service that took place at a community in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya on Oct. 8. Biblash spoke with the Blade after it ended.

“It was a big effort and a big success,” she said, referring to the campaign to change the Bereaved Families Law.

Oct. 7 has left LGBTQ Palestinians even more vulnerable, isolated

The activists with whom the Blade spoke readily acknowledged Oct. 7 and its aftermath have particularly harmed LGBTQ Palestinians.

Bloemendal noted Jerusalem Open House works with people from the West Bank, Israeli settlements, and Arab cities throughout the region.

“It’s about whether you can come here,” she said. “Once you come here, we don’t care where you come from.”

The Tel Aviv Court for Administrative Affairs in February ruled LGBTQ Palestinians can request asylum in Israel based on persecution they suffer in their homeland because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Bloemendal noted the additional restrictions on travel from the West Bank that Israel implemented after Oct. 7 has left LGBTQ Palestinians even more vulnerable and isolated.

“Some of them could come and go before, but … everything is more closed now because they (Israeli authorities) are afraid of suicide bombs and things like that,” she said. “It’s much harder to leave home, so you don’t even have your one time a week getting out to Jerusalem and having your LGBTQ experience.”

Neesha Gagement of the Israeli Transgender Association, a group that works with Palestinian trans sex workers in Jaffa, spoke with the Blade on Oct. 13 at her office in Tel Aviv’s Neve Sha’anan neighborhood.

She said many of the sex workers with whom she and her colleagues work faced discrimination, harassment, and other challenges before Oct. 7 — and some chose “a very Israeli name” and did not “speak out” as a result. Gagement told the Blade that many of them are now afraid of leaving their homes, have stopped using social media, and even planning to leave Israel.

“[They are] terrified of expressing their opinion,” she said.

The Israeli Transgender Association since Oct. 7 has offered virtual psychological services. Therapists in some cases will also meet clients at coffee shops close to where they live.

The Israeli government says Hamas militants on Oct. 7 killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival near Re’im, a kibbutz that is a few miles southwest of Be’eri. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 42,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7.

The International Criminal Court in May announced it plans to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh. 

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the five men have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel. (A suspected Israeli airstrike on July 31 killed Haniyah while he was in the Iranian capital of Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration. IDF soldiers on Oct. 16 killed Sinwar in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that borders Egypt.)

Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for an Oct. 1 attack at a light rail station in Jaffa that left seven people dead and more than a dozen others injured.

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, since Oct. 8, 2023, has been regularly launching rockets and missiles from Lebanon to Israel. 

The Lebanese Health Ministry has said Israeli airstrikes in Beirut and elsewhere in the country in recent weeks have killed upwards of 2,500 people. 

An Israeli airstrike in the Beirut suburb of Dahieh on Sept. 27 killed long-time Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Iran on Oct. 1 launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation. 

Hamas on the anniversary of Oct. 7 launched rockets that triggered sirens in Tel Aviv and surrounding areas. The Houthi rebels in Yemen on the same day launched missiles and drones that prompted additional warnings in central Israel. Hezbollah missiles on the anniversary of Oct. 7 also targeted an IDF base north of Tel Aviv.   

Israel’s air defense system intercepted almost all of the rockets and missiles. 

Hamas militants kidnapped, murdered Yad Vashem historian

Oct. 7 and the war has directly impacted several of the activists with whom the Blade spoke.

Hamas militants kidnapped Alex Dancyg, a historian at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, from his home in Nir Oz, a kibbutz that is roughly two miles from Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza.

The militants later killed Dancyg, and the IDF on Aug. 20 recovered his body from a tunnel in Khan Younis. His wife and young twins spent upwards of 18 hours trapped in Nir Oz on Oct. 7 before the IDF rescued them.

Bloemendal became friends with Dancyg when she worked at Yad Vashem. She became emotional when she spoke about him.

“I learned a lot from him,” said Bloemendal. “We became friends.”

Bloemendal’s brother is an IDF reservist who fought Hamas militants in Gaza. His wife and their three young children left their home in Kiryat Gat, a city in southern Israel that is roughly 20 miles east of Gaza, and lived with Bloemendal’s parents and other relatives in Jerusalem for several months.

“We try to help as best as we can, but she has three kids under the age of five,” said Bloemendal. “No matter how much you help it’s not the same.”

Hezbollah rocket killed three of gay Druze man’s cousins

Ala Ibrahim, 30, is a gay Druze man who grew up Majdal Shams, a predominantly Druze community in the Golan Heights. He moved to Tel Aviv a decade ago, and works in the city’s high tech industry.

Ibrahim on July 27 was about to board a flight to Israel from Bangkok when his mother called him and told him a Hezbollah rocket had struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams.

He told the Blade on Oct. 14 during a telephone interview that he knew the rocket had killed nine children when the flight took off. Ibrahim landed at Ben-Gurion Airport 10 hours later, and heard a reporter read the names of the 12 victims on the radio while he was in a taxi.

Three of them — Johnny Wadeea Ibrahim, Guevara Ibrahim Ibrahim, and Alma Ayman Fakhr al-Din — were his cousins.

“That’s how I knew,” said Ibrahim.

He quickly returned to Majdal Shams with his cousin.

Ibrahim said the victims’ caskets were not open at their funerals “because all of them were not in a state where they could be shown.” He told the Blade that children were crying because they could no longer play with their friends.

“It was a heartbreaking day to be there,” said Ibrahim.

The Nova Music Festival was less than 30 miles from Be’er Sheba.

Former Pride House of Be’er Sheva Chair Ariella Menaker told the Blade less than a week after Oct. 7 that she received an invitation to attend one of the festival’s parties. She said she knew at least five people who had been killed.

“It’s a close-knit group,” said Menaker. “Even people you don’t know by name; you’ve partied with them; you know them. You’ve known them for years from the dance floor.”

“I keep thinking about them, trying to escape,” she added.

Bahar said “everyone knows someone” who was killed on Oct. 7.

“We can’t see the end right now,” Biblash told the Blade after Golan’s memorial service.

She lives outside of Tel Aviv with her 1-year-old child.

Biblash described the Iranian missile attack against Israel on Oct. 1 as “terrifying.” She also said her child sleeps in her home’s safe room.

“That’s crazy,” said Biblash. “That should not happen.”

TEL AVIV, Israel — Carmel Gat on Oct. 6, 2023, traveled to Be’eri, a kibbutz near the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip where she grew up, to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah with her parents, brothers, and extended family.

Gat and her brother, Alon Gat, planned to go for a run at around 6:30 a.m. the next morning.

“At 6:29, the bombing and the alarms started and the whole family went into the safe room,” her cousin, Shay Dickmann, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “We have this last picture of Carmel with her running clothes on, in which she was later kidnapped, reading a book to Geffen (her young niece.)”

“It is just typically Carmel in this moment of distress when there are rockets around, the rumors start running that there are terrorists inside the kibbutz, she just had the inner power and stability to take care of others and help her niece, her 3 and 1/2 year old niece, try and calm her down,” said Dickmann.

Dickmann said Gat’s mother, Kinneret Gat, left the safe room at about 10:30 a.m. to get some food and water. Her father, Eshel Gat, went to the bathroom.

Dickmann said Kinneret Gat saw Hamas militants from her kitchen window.

“The last thing she managed to do was to warn her husband, Eshel, from the terrorists and shush him with her finger on her lips and she signaled him to go back to the toilet and hide himself,” recalled Dickmann. “She didn’t know at that point she saved his life.” 

Dickmann said the bathroom in which Eshel Gat was hiding was the one room in the house the militants did not search.

“He was safe, but from the window of the toilet he saw his family taken one-by-one by the terrorists,” Dickmann told the Blade.

She said the last time Eshel Gat saw his wife she was bending down in the kitchen, “and she was the first to be taken by the terrorists.”

“They came into the kitchen, and they took her,” she said. “They tied her hands and walked her through her own kibbutz barefoot with a bunch of people from Kibbutz Be’eri.”

The militants then put Carmel Gat in a car with two teenagers who were brother and sister.

“The car was moving, driving through the point where Carmel saw her mother lying down on the sidewalk, her head shot and she realized that she saw her mother dead and this is the last thing that Carmel saw when she was taken hostage into Gaza, her beloved one dead,” said Dickmann.

She said her cousin did not know what happened to the rest of her family: Her father, her two brothers, her sister-in-law, Yarden Roman-Gat, and her niece Geffen. Her younger brother, Or Gat, had already left the kibbutz.

The Blade has previously reported the militants placed Roman-Gat, Alon Gat, and their daughter into a car.

Roman-Gat and Alon Gat jumped out of it with their daughter as it approached Gaza. Roman-Gat handed her daughter to her husband because he was able to run faster.

Alon Gat hid with his daughter for 18 hours before they reached Israel Defense Forces soldiers at Be’eri. He told Gili Roman, his brother-in-law who lives in Tel Aviv and is a member of the Nemos LGBTQ+ Swimming Club, he last saw his wife, Roman’s sister, hiding behind a tree to protect herself from the militants who were shooting at her.

“My brother saw a video on Telegram of Kinneret lying down on the sidewalk with a pool of blood next to her head, said Dickmann, recounting how she and her family learned the militants had murdered Kinneret Gat.

“We started looking for Carmel and for Yarden and for 50 days we didn’t know anything about them,” added Dickmann. “Just imagine we were worried sick and not even knowing if their body might be found here or were they kidnapped alive.”

Hamas on the second day of a week-long ceasefire in November released the two teenagers who had been kidnapped alongside Carmel Gat.

“It was amazing to see how 13 children and women are coming back to us and their families, and they were among them,” said Dickmann. “Unfortunately they discovered that their mother was murdered and at the time they were informed that their father was kidnapped. Today we know that their father was murdered as well. They are orphans.”

The teenagers confirmed that Carmel Gat was alive.

“Carmel was with them since the moment that they were put into the car taking them into Gaza and until the moment they were released and they say she was their guardian angel,” Dickmann told the Blade. “She was just keeping them sane in captivity, supporting them. She was handling a diary, writing down songs and sentences to bring their spirits up and she was practicing yoga with them in captivity.” 

“This was the most amazing thing that we learned, just having that inner power in this situation. We know that they were starved. We know that they experienced violence there, that they were held in an apartment, in a baby’s room, having to lay on the floor, given one pita bread a day they had to share, and being held against their will, far from their families, not knowing if they are alive or not, but she had the powers to give to others and knowing that Carmel is there, being Carmel, choosing to live, it gave so much hope, and to this hope we were holding on, day-by-day, in the hope that the next day she would be on the list of people realized.”

Hamas on Nov. 29, 2023, released Roman-Gat, along with 11 other Israelis and four Thai nationals. She reunited with her family a short-time later at an Israeli hospital.

“On the fourth day Yarden came back,” said Dickmann. “I can’t even describe the feeling.”

Hamas was supposed to release Carmel Gat on the eighth day of the ceasefire, but it only lasted seven days.

“Carmel was supposed to be freed on the eighth (day), and she wasn’t, and she was left behind,” Dickmann said. “For us it was devastating, but we also knew that Carmel is holding on to hope, and we were holding on to her hope and we did it in her way.” 

Carmel Gat’s family every Friday practiced yoga, “inspired by her, and giving power to others.” They invited other hostage families to speak about a loved one who was in Gaza.

“We did it for weeks, week after week, 40 weeks, that we spoke about the hope, that we were holding the hope, that she was surviving there, waiting for this moment, for the deal that will free her,” said Dickmann.

The Israeli government on Sept. 1 announced Hamas had killed Carmel Gat and five other hostages — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Eden Yerushalmi — in a tunnel beneath Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that borders Egypt. The hostages “were shot at close range” by militants on Aug. 29 or Aug. 30 before the IDF could rescue them. 

“Carmel survived for 328 days,” Dickmann told the Blade. “She survived, until the day that she was brutally executed by her captors. She survived everything. She survived the tunnels.” 

Dickmann said she and her family received a video that showed where the militants killed Carmel Gat and the five other hostages.

“The conditions were horrible,” said Dickmann. “They were 20 meters underground, suffocating, moist. It was moldy. They had very little food. The six bodies were found thin and starved.” 

The video also showed bottles filled with urine and blood alongside the tunnels. Dickmann said the bodies also showed signs they had been tied up.

“She survived it all, but she couldn’t survive the bullet in her head, and her life was finished in a tunnel, shot, 328 days from her mother’s same destiny, but Carmel we could save, for 328 days we could save her,” said Dickmann. “We could have made a deal that could have brought her back home alive.”

Dickmann also told the Blade she “could also imagine” her cousin, who was an occupational therapist, helping Goldberg-Polin, who lost part of his arm when militants attacked him after he fled the Nova Music Festival in Re’im, another kibbutz that is near Gaza. She was also “imaging her having conversations” with Lobanov about what to name his second son to whom his wife had given birth while he was in Gaza.

“She believed in the possibility to live here with our neighbors,” said Dickmann, who added her cousin and Kinneret Gat were also studying Arabic. 

“There are so many people still alive there surviving, waiting for us to make the deal that will save them,” she said. “There are so many families who can still get this hug, the hug that I was waiting for and I’ll never get.”

Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis launch rockets, missiles towards Israel on Oct. 7 anniversary

The Blade spoke with Dickmann hours after she and her family attended the Bereaved Families Memorial Ceremony in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park that marked a year since Oct. 7.

Organizers had originally allocated 40,000 free tickets for the event, but only 2,000 family members and reporters attended because the IDF Home Front Command had limited the number of people who could attend large gatherings because of increased threats of rockets and missiles from Hamas and Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant group.

A ballistic missile that Houthi rebels in Yemen launched towards Israel prompted sirens to go off in Tel Aviv and surrounding areas, but the country’s air defense system intercepted, less than hour before the event began.

Hezbollah a few hours later launched five ballistic missiles from Lebanon towards an IDF base north of Tel Aviv. The Iron Dome air defense system intercepted them. It also intercepted four of the five rockets that Hamas launched towards Tel Aviv — shrapnel from one of them that struck the ground slightly injured two women.

Or Gat is among those who spoke at the Bereaved Families Memorial Ceremony. 

Many of the hostage families refused to attend a government-organized memorial that Israeli televisions broadcast later on Monday.

Cousin was a ‘person of peace’

Dickmann told the Blade that while she was at the memorial she was “very concentrated on the struggle to bring back the hostages on time, understanding that it’s both critical in the manner that is life or death matter and it is also urgent, understanding that our people are held by their captors who at any time aim a gun at their heads.”

“They must be returned before they’re executed so, I was very concentrated on that,” she said. 

Dickmann also said the memorial — and marking the first anniversary of Oct. 7 — made her “understand there are thousands of families affected by Oct. 7.”

“On this day, so many youngsters were burned alive in their cars trying to run away from the Nova festival,” she said. “In the safe rooms there were so many couples of parents hiding their children in closets and underneath beds and shushing them in order to allow them to survive the attack on their houses and today I just realize there are … so many orphans left and so many stories of people who left everything behind, who left their whole families behind to come and try to save lives on this day of the attack. Some of them managed and rescued my uncle and some of them managed to save lives and lost their own.”

She also noted 101 hostages remain in Gaza.

“This is the most important thing and most urgent thing; to get back all of them to their houses and their families,” said Dickmann. “They deserve to be set free, and this is what I’m fighting for.”

She ended the interview by describing her cousin as a “person of peace.”

“We lost so much, on both sides of the border,” said Dickmann. “I’d really like this war to end; everybody to come back to their homes; the Palestinians to their homes with no one else getting hurt; residents of northern Israel going back to their houses and being safe and secure, residents of the South being able to go back to their houses and most of all the people being held hostage to come back, to safety, to their house, to their families and not ever being having to be worried about whether they will be separated from their parents or children or brothers and lives again.”

“I really hope that soon, as soon as possible, we will be able to reach a deal that will bring everybody home and bring peace upon us and we will be able to live alongside each other in peace,” she added.