Several former hostages and families of hostages demanded that Transportation Minister Miri Regev not use their names during the October 7 state memorial ceremony.
Some 100 people who returned from captivity in Gaza, along with families of hostages still being held in Gaza, made their request in a letter sent to Regev on Wednesday.
They demanded that she refrain from using any information or images of them or their family members still in captivity during the first-anniversary state ceremony for the Hamas massacre.
The letter came as part of a public spat between Regev and a large number of families of hostages over the upcoming one-year commemoration of the massacre. Regev, the government’s nominee to lead the commemoration events, announced that a ceremony would be held in Ofakim without a live audience and with pre-recorded video segments.
The families accused Regev of intentionally avoiding a live audience to avoid criticism. Instead, the families are planning an alternative ceremony with a live audience in Tel Aviv.
“It cannot be that, in this period, when the state’s resources are supposed to be invested in the return of the [remaining] hostages, as well as in the protection of the Gaza border communities and the North, in the concern for the many evacuees and all the affected citizens, resources are invested in a ceremony conducted by those who, through their oversight, have led to the unfortunate situation in which we find ourselves,” the letter read.“The returned hostages, relatives of hostages, and the murdered hostages will not lend a hand to the cynical use of the names of the hostages, whom the country has abandoned for almost a year, or in the names of their relatives who were murdered in the October 7 massacre,” their message added.
The letter then asked that the names of the released hostages, the hostages still in captivity, and their relatives should not be used in the ceremony.
Focus on returning the hostages
The signees also requested that the government reconsider holding the ceremony altogether and instead focus on returning the hostages.
In parallel on Wednesday, a list of more than 100 families of people who were murdered on October 7 or in battle afterwards, and of people who were kidnapped, including some who have been released and others who have not, expressed their support for the alternative ceremony in Tel Aviv.
One of the alternative ceremony organizers is Jonathan Shimriz, brother of Alon Shimriz, who was kidnapped and inadvertently shot to death by soldiers after escaping his captors. Shimriz invited all of the bereaved families and families of hostages to join the ceremony.
Comedian and journalist Hanoch Daum, the host of the alternative ceremony, called on the state ceremony’s organizers to broadcast the ceremony at a different time on October 7, so that people will not have to choose between the two events. Daum’s proposal received backing from a number of politicians across the aisle, including MK Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionist Party) and Naama Lazimi (Democrats).