Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, met with Holocaust survivors, and leaders of the delegations of the 2024 Holocaust Remembrance Conference of Yad Vashem, at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem Thursday night.
The meeting was also attended by government secretary Yossi Fuchs, Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan, and family members accompanying the survivors.
Aryeh Itani, a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor from Italy recounted his experiences during the Holocaust. "At the age of 18, while in the ghetto, only a weak population remained, and out of all of them, only I survived. They ask me 'why?' and I don't know. I wasn't smarter, more religious, or stronger. I don't know how I survived."
Bring them home now
Itani shared his story, and then pleaded with Netanyahu to bring the hostages remaining in Gaza home. "I was a prisoner in both Syria and Cyprus and I escaped, I was in prison for two months," he said.
"I've been through enough prisons and I have only one wish left - the honor of the prime minister, bring back the hostages. It bothers me a lot, it drives me crazy, believe me. This is it, sir, bring back the captives, please, from you."
The Prime Minister responded to his pleas, "We are making tremendous efforts. We have already returned half, when people didn't believe we would return anyone, and I can tell you that we are determined to bring back everyone - both the living and the fallen. We don't forget anyone."
Izzy (Yitzhak) Kavillo, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor from Yugoslavia, said that first and foremost, we must not forget what happened. "The State of Israel today is the one and only refuge for the Jewish people," he declared.
"If anyone ever thought that the United States of America could also be a refuge, with what's happening there today, we see that it's no longer the case. Therefore, we must strengthen the country."